TCS targets France with €75m services acquisition
TCS has announced the acquisition of the French IT services company Alti for €75m.
The deal is intended to "strengthen TCS' ability and footprint to service its customers in France and other regions in Europe," TCS said in a statement.
Alti will provide the Indian IT services company with an additional 1,200 employees in France, Belgium and Switzerland along with local expertise in enterprise, insurance and CRM products.
N Chandrasekaran, CEO and managing director of TCS, said the acquisition is part of a "long-term, strategic commitment to France which is the third largest IT services market in Europe", right after the UK and Germany.
TCS has been operating in France since 1992 and has over 50 clients in the country, according to the company. Among them is Europcar, which it signed a multiyear deal with in 2012.
Historically though its footprint in France has been rather low. In early 2011, Kumar Kaleeswaran, TCS' country manager for France, acknowledged its local staff included just 12 salespeople and it had a goal of reaching 200 local front office workers by March 2012.
TCS has however been recently hiring locally to boost its European footprint, to the point that, last autumn, the company reported a sequential decline of its profit margins partly due to those hirings.
"Over the last 5 years, TCS has significantly strengthened its position in the country through local hiring and investments," Chandrasekaran said.