As Infosys looks to ramp up its Salesforce ecosystem, the Indian information technology giant is set to acquire US-based digital services and consulting firm Simplus in a deal pegged at around $250 million. “This acquisition follows up on Infy’s acquisition of Fluido in Sep 2018, further adding to Infosys’s inorganic push toward enhancing capabilities in the Salesforce ecosystem,” brokerage firm Emkay said on Tuesday. Another brokerage Motilal Oswal also said that the Simplus acquisition will strengthen Salesforce capabilities of Infosys. Simplus has tripled its revenues during FY18 to FY20 and is growing at a rapid rate, the Emkay report added. Its revenues stood at $67.1 million at the end of January 2020.

Infosys expects to complete the acquisition process by the end of Q4 of the current fiscal year 2019-20. “This acquisition is key to staying relevant to the digital priorities of our clients and demonstrates our commitment to the Salesforce ecosystem,” Pravin Rao, Chief Operating Officer, Infosys, said in a statement on Monday. Moreover, Simplus will also provide salesforce expertise, industry knowledge, solution assets, to Infosys. Simplus’ clientele includes various industries such as financial services, retail, healthcare, life sciences and manufacturing. Simplus currently has a global footprint in North America, Sydney, Melbourne and London.

Of $250 million for the proposed deal, Infosys will give $200 million as upfront cash payment while the rest of the amount will be settled as retention payments and employee incentives, based on certain performance measures. Infosys will get an additional 500 employees after the acquisition. “The acquisition may be revenue-accretive by about 50 bps for Infosys in FY21E,” Emkay said.

Meanwhile, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has shortlisted eight companies, including Infosys for a “data analytics project”. The regulator aims to track possible market manipulations such as insider trading and front running via this move. The regulator had invited expression of interest (EoI) from “reputed and reliable solution providers for implementation of data analytics project and building of data models at Sebi,” in November last year.

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