Sopra and CS Communication & Systèmes, a French IT services vendor, have announced a multi-tiered agreement: CS is to proceed to a €12m convertible bond issuance (maturity 5 years, conversion price per share: €3.6; interest rate: 4%; delivery: July 2014). As part of this issuance, Sopra agreed with DUNA & Cie, th[...]

Atos is to acquire France-headquartered technology vendor Bull for €620m in an all cash transaction. Atos offers €4.9 per Bull share, a premium of 22% over May 23’s closure price of €4.01. The offer is conditional on Atos receiving 50% and 1 shares. The largest shareholders of Bull, Crescendo Industries and Pothar Investments, which own a 24.2% stake in Bull, ha[...]

Lockheed Martin (LMT) has acquired Beontra AG for an undisclosed sum to enhance its civil aviation capabilities. Headquartered in Karlsruhe, Germany, Beontra is a provider of integrated planning and demand forecasting tools for airports for traffic, capacity and revenue planning. It has 40 clients including Dubai, London Heathrow, Sydney, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Schiphol and Munich airports. [...]

Serco has updated its guidance for 2013 and 2014 following its clearance by the U.K. government to bid for new contracts.  Serco expects a mid-single digit percentage organic decline on 2013 revenue due to: Lower levels of incremental work won across the group to date Attrition from contracts lost such as electronic monitoring Volume reductions in its Australian immigration detent[...]

TSYS' full year 2013 revenues (including reimbursables) were $2.1bn, a growth of 14.0%. The underlying fundamentals of the business (number of accounts on file and transaction volumes) grew aggressively in 2013, increasing 13% and 15% respectively.  In 2013 TSYS continued to enjoy strong revenue and earnings growth. Growth in the merchant business is continuing[...]

Capita acquired Cedar HR back in September 2011 for £15m to bring new market opportunities to the group. At the time there was much talk of police turning to technology and outsourcing for efficiency but a period of indecision preceded and followed the first-ever election of police and crime commissioners in November 2012. Against this backdrop, the Cedar seed has slowly geminated and starte[...]

Wipro results this quarter show an ongoing improvement: topline growth is continues to improve and operating margin is the highest it has been for two years. Clearly, it still has a way to go to catch up with Indian growth rates (NASSCOM guided on 14% this FY), let alone with TCS. This quarter, Wipro achieved an operating margin of 23% and $101m in y/y topline growth; TCS achieved an operating mar[...]

Another very strong quarter from TCS, with no hint of the slight slowdown in growth that we have seen at Accenture (for its November quarter) and Infosys. If we look at where the growth is coming from: The more established ADM services (where Infosys took its eye of the ball in FY 13) contributed an estimated $173m in additional revenue, or 35.4% of the y/y growth of $490m. (Infosys achie[...]

HP Enterprise Services (ES) has announced fiscal Q4 2013 results, for the period ending October 31, 2013: Revenues were $5,759m, down 9.3% y/y, and down 1% sequentially EBIT was $255m, a margin of 4.4% down 223 bps y/y. Fiscal Q4 2013 revenue (and y/y and sequential revenue growth) by service type was: Infrastructure technology outsourcing $3,563m (-9%, -3%) Application and bu[...]

Capita has announced the retirement of its CEO, Paul Pindar, with effect from February 28, 2014. Pindar will step down after 26 years with the company. Andy Parker, Capita's current Deputy Chief Executive and Joint COO, will succeed Paul as Chief Executive from March 1, 2014.  Dawn Marriott-Sims, currently Executive Director of Capita's Workplace Services division, will be appointed t[...]

Atos has unveiled its financial objectives for its Worldline unit. The company is to float Worldline by mid-2014, while keeping a majority stake in the company. Proceeds from the IPO are to finance organic growth and especially acquisitions. Financial objectives for the 2013-2017 period include: Revenue growth of 5% to 7% (2013-2017 CAGR) all organic (2012 revenues €1,066m, +5%; 2013[...]

Cigniti’s mobile application testing road-map prefigures how overall software testing is likely to evolve over the next few years. Like a number of its competitors, Cigniti has launched a centralized service consolidated across labs, therefore allowing economics of scale. The company is able to share costs of its device estate investment across clients, at a minimal price i.e.[...]

NelsonHall recently attended an Infosys analyst event in Europe, where it was briefed by Infosys on progress in its ‘Infosys 3.0’ strategy. The company is looking to build its Consulting & Systems Integration (C&SI) and Product & Platform Solutions (PPS) businesses while further strengthening its core Business and IT Services (BITS) businesses; the intent remains to deri[...]

NGA's performance is in keeping with the HRO market which has been buoyant in recent months. The division's revenue will have been boosted by the Convergys acquisition as well as wining new contracts (e.g. Aer Lingus) and successful renewals (e.g. Fifth Third Bank). The restructuring of NPS division last year, to focus more on services, combined with a number of contracts starting in 20[...]

TCS has been awarded a five-year £13m contract by the Security Industry Authority (SIA), a unit reporting to the Home Secretary that is responsible for regulating the private security industry in the U.K. Around £5.4m will be subcontracted to a hosting partner. TCS is tasked with providing new systems to support the delivery of the SIA's future licensing, approval and [...]