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That is a good exit for shrewd entrepreneur Kalpathi Suresh. He has sold a 51 per cent stake in his IT training company Software Solution Integrated (SSI) to PVP Group for Rs 613.14 crore ($140 million). The promoters (the Kalpathis and associates) hold 71 per cent in the company, which was started 15 years ago as a software training company. It later ventured into software development and then into real estate. Suresh may offload more stake at a later stage, and exit the company completely.

The NRI acquirer will also make an open offer for 20 per cent of the company from the public market, which will add another Rs 239.20 crore to the total acquisition bill. The open offer will be made at Rs 208 a share as against the stock price of Rs 157.7 on National Stock Exchange on Monday.

The Times of India has a nice profile of Suresh here. Suresh has moved to fashionable businesses at the right time. SSI was started as a IT training firm, when the business was booming. He later diversified to software development as that was the business to be in. Suresh himself had been an acquirer too. In 2000, Suresh acquired AlbionOrion of the US for $63 million, which he later sold off to Scandent. In 2003, SSI acquired the 27 per cent of Atul Nishar in Aptech for Rs 24.5 crore.

His next fancy was real estate. In 2006, Suresh acquired a 70-plus acre Binny Mills property in Chennai and also Dasaprakash's hotel property in Ooty. He also forayed into entertainment by acquiring Telephoto Entertainment.

There are not much details available of the acquirer PVP Group. It's owned by NRI serial entrepreneur Prasad V Potluri. They already have over 1,000 acre land bank.

Suresh co-founded SSI in 1991. He is an IIT Madras graduate and has a master’s from Clemson University, South Carolina. He has previously worked with Siemens and HCL in India, and with Sybase (through HCL) in the US.