By Dominique Vidalon and Georgina Prodhan
PARIS (Reuters) - French information technology services company Atos Origin (ATOS.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) wants to make acquisitions in India as soon as possible to accelerate its growth there and is holding talks with several companies, its chief executive said on Wednesday.
Bernard Bourigeaud also told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit that Atos planned to increase its staff in India to 2,500 by the end of this year from 1,500 now, excluding the effect of any acquisitions.
Expanding its business in India and China is a key plank of Atos's plan to bump up the proportion of its sales globally that come from Asia to 10 percent over the next four to five years from 4 percent now, Bourigeaud said.
"I'm in discussions with some firms," he said. He hoped to clinch a deal "as quickly as we can".
Bourigeaud said the companies he was looking at were in information technology, but that he was not discounting the possibility of buying an outsourcing firm.
He also said Atos was more interested in buying a "captive company", for example the IT division of a conglomerate, than a company with its own listing.
"I want to accelerate the growth in India but I'm not prepared to pay the going market rate," he said, explaining why he did not want to buy a listed company at the moment.
Bourigeaud dismissed the possibility of Atos itself being acquired by an Indian company. "I don't believe that Indian companies are going to buy European companies," he said. Continued...
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