Prism Informatics raising holding in Idhasoft to 40.29%

Software development and consulting company Prism Informatics Ltd is raising its holding in privately held IT consulting firm Idhasoft Ltd for an undisclosed sum. Public-listed Prism Informatics has recently acquired 20.28 per cent stake in Idhasoft and is now picking an additional 20.01 per cent stake from Glyce Gibson, the second largest shareholder in Idhasoft.

Set up in 2006, Idhasoft is a Mumbai-based software solutions company specialising in software development, IT consultancy and business process outsourcing services. It has over 1,000 clients and offices in the US and India. The company posted Rs 429 crore in revenue in the financial year ended March 31, 2012.

Prism Informatics is engaged in software development and provides Web technologies, application development, mobile computing and systems programming services.

As reported earlier, Prism is, in effect, buying stake in its former promoter. Idhasoft had picked around 74 per cent stake in Prism Informatics back in 2009, which got diluted with preferential issues, besides the stake sale by Idhasoft. As of March 31, 2012, Idhasoft held around 3.39 per cent in Prism Informatics.

Meanwhile, Alok Pathak, founder & CEO of Idhasoft, has become the CEO of Prism and the company has adopted a string-of-pearls acquisition strategy, striking around half-a-dozen deals in the past two years. It also acquired a few group firms belonging to its promoter Idhasoft.

Last year, Prism Informatics' board approved investing in Idhasoft by way of subscription in rights issue and purchase of equity shares from existing shareholders of Idhasoft for a total stake of up to 51 per cent.

After picking a majority stake in its former promoter many times its size, Prism will be, in effect, looking to consolidate its financials with Idhasoft. Prism had revenues of just Rs 66 crore, with Rs 90 lakh profit for the year ended March 31, 2011. The combined entity is expected to close FY13 with revenues of Rs 500 crore.

Interestingly, the firm disclosed last year that Saurabh Bankimchandra Dani, belonging to one of the promoter groups of Asian Paints and promoter of Secure Matrix Pvt Ltd, had been included as a promoter of Prism. But currently, he does not own any stake personally, as per shareholding disclosures.