Aptech in consolidation mode, rejigs foreign businesses

Kavita Nair in Mumbai

Aptech Limited is in the process of consolidating its overseas businesses. According to the company’s Annual Report for 2000, Aptech Limited has acquired all the equity of its joint venture partner in the Middle East during the year and made Aptech Information Systems Middle East WLL (ASI) Manama, Bahrain a wholly owned subsidiary of the company. The company’s subsidiary in Australia, Aptech Technologies Pty Ltd (APTL), is in the process of acquiring the shares from its joint venture partner there, to make Aptech Worldwide Pty Ltd (a subsidiary of ATPL) a wholly owned subsidiary. During the year the company also formed a 50:50 joint venture with the government of China, through a venture with Beijing University. The JV is called Beijing Aptech Computer IT Company Limited.

The report adds that Bahrain based ASI is under Voluntary Liquidation and the operations are proposed to be shifted to the company’s branch office in Dubai. The report also confirms the closing of operations of the joint venture company Aptech Worldwide SDN BHD in Malaysia, due to the “uneconomical size of operations and local economic conditions”. Through their joint venture in China, the company aims to expand the company’s international training and education business in that country.

Under the training and education business, the company has outlined a three-pronged strategy to address the global market.

The first element of the strategy is for retail education in the career segment, wherein the company, through global alliances with universities and Software organisations is targeting a presence in 50 countries in all, within a year. These countries have been identified based on various parameters such as population, IT-readiness and revenue potential and the company is present in 40 of these countries, in partnership with the government in several countries such as China, Vietnam and El Salvador.

The multimedia education business is the second segment that is slated to grow rapidly and Aptech is planning an international thrust in this segment. The report states that Arena Multimedia, Aptech’s multimedia training division, is pursuing an aggressive strategy to expand to 12 countries.

The third part of the strategy focuses on corporate training. The company is also planning to launch online varsities in the far Eastern, Chinese, Latin American and European markets in the coming year.