Under the terms of the deal, I-Flex will issue approximately 4.5m equity shares to Oracle under a preferential allotment at a price of INR 1,307.50 ($28.10) per share. The move increases Oracle’s stake in I-Flex to 55.1% from 52.5%.
Oracle is now required by Indian law to make an open offer for an additional 20% stake in I-Flex. The price of the offer has been set at INR 1,475 ($31.70) per share. In December 2005, Oracle completed the acquisition of the 41% interest in I-Flex previously held by Citigroup Venture Capital International.
Following the announcement, shares in I-Flex rose over 4% in trading on the Indian National stock exchange, while Oracle shares were up some 3% in early trading on the Nasdaq.
Herndon, Virginia-based Mantas provides anti-money laundering software and services to financial services organizations. The company’s applications cover areas such as regulatory compliance, loss prevention and revenue generation. Mantas’ customers include ABN Amro, Barclays and Merrill Lynch.
Having started out as a product and license reseller, Mumbai-based I-Flex has now established itself as a provider of IT services, notably application development and systems integration. In the year to March 2006, the company derived 47.4% of annual sales totaling INR 14.8bn ($318.7m) from its services operation, with a further 1.6% coming from knowledge process outsourcing (KPO).
On the products side, I-Flex’s performance is driven by banking products such as the Flexcube suite, which covers retail, consumer, corporate, investment and internet banking as well as asset management and investor servicing, Daybreak and Reveleus.
