Coforge scouting for acquisitions: CEO

New Delhi: IT company Coforge is actively scouting for acquisition in areas such as data, cloud, healthcare and `low-code no-code' space, according to its Chief Executive Officer Sudhir Singh.The company “has a few conversations going on right now”, Singh said adding both financial and cultural match will be an important consideration. “We are actively looking for assets in the data space, cloud space, Salesforce space or the healthcare space.We are also looking for acquisitions in the low-code, no-code space, so these four or five areas are important for us,” Singh told. It is pertinent to mention that low-code and no-code are alternative app development methods that use intuitive, graphical interface and pre-configured templates to give users power and flexibility to create applications and automate processes without having to write line-after-line of codes.

The company is “very keen” on buyouts but will not rush into it. Coforge is not under any pressure and if the valuations are not a match, the company will wait rather than overpay for an asset. “Valuations should have come down. They have not because firms that are not able to grow organically, continue to buy growth,” he said. On whether Coforge is hopeful of going ahead with an acquisition in FY2024, Singh said the company will most certainly like to, but will not do so under pressure, as its organic business is “in a good space. At this stage if we can't do an acquisition, we will still do very well. But we want to do an acquisition and want to make sure it is right,” he added.

The mid-sized IT company raced past the $1 billion revenue mark for the full year FY23 and rewarded its employees by gifting an Apple iPad to each of its 21,000-plus staff. It, however, reported nearly 45 per cent year-on-year fall in its consolidated net profit for March quarter at about Rs115 crore hurt by one-time expenses. The one-time expense pertained to the cost incurred by the company towards gifting Apple iPad to employees. The company has also made provision towards US listing plans, primarily on legal and banking expenses, and will take a call on timing of secondary ADR based on market conditions.