HCL Technologies Ltd and Sumeru Equity Partners, a technology and growth-focussed private equity firm, have agreed to jointly acquire US-based Actian Corporation for $330 million (Rs 2,145 crore) in cash.
HCL will own 80% while Sumeru will have a 19.5% stake in the joint venture which will own Actian, the Indian software services exporter said in a statement. Actian chief executive officer Rohit De Souza will own the remaining 0.5%.
The all-cash deal will be financed through a combination of equity and debt. HCL will infuse $164 million in equity besides $125 million through debt financing.
Sumeru will infuse $40 million in equity, while De Souza will put in $1 million.
Actian offers hybrid data management, cloud integration and analytics solutions. It owns products such as Actian Vector, the world’s fastest columnar database; Actian DataConnect, a hybrid cloud data integration platform; and Actian X, a hybrid database for next generation operational analytics.
It has a global customer base with business operations primarily in US, UK, Germany, Japan & Australia.
"Actian will play a critical role in enhancing HCL’s Mode 3 offerings in data management products and platforms," said C Vijayakumar, president and chief executive officer of HCL Technologies.
George Kadifa, managing director of Sumeru Equity Partners, said the firm sees an attractive market growth opportunity for data-centric companies.
Actian will remain a separate entity within the HCL Technologies ecosystem and will continue to be led by De Souza.
The Palo Alto-based firm earned revenues of $107.1 million in 2017, with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $38.5 million for the same period.
Its revenues in 2016 and 2015 were $112.2 million and $107.1 million respectively.
Sumeru Equity Partners is a technology-focused private equity firm that invests in companies across software, technology-enabled services and hardware.
The firm was founded in 2014 by a team from Silver Lake Sumeru, a private equity fund started in 2007 within US-headquartered Silver Lake.
HCL's acquisitions
HCL Tech, founded by billionaire Shiv Nadar, has snapped up several overseas assets as Indian software services exporters seek to diversify their offerings beyond their traditional outsourcing business.
Last week, HCL had agreed to acquire life sciences and consumer services provider C3i Solutions from US-based drug maker Merck & Co. for $60 million (Rs 390 crore) in cash.
C3i Solutions is the business name of Telerx Marketing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Merck & Co.
In September last year, HCL Technologies acquired Edinburg-based data management firm Datawave for £7 million (about Rs 58.57 crore) in cash.Â
A few months before that, it acquired US-based Urban Fulfillment Services LLC for $30 million (Rs 193 crore).
