Essar Group, a multinational conglomerate and leading player in the sectors of steel, oil and gas, power, communications, shipping ports and logistics, construction and minerals, has announced that it has successfully completed the acquisition of AGC Networks, including closure of the offer representing 20% of AGC Networks' outstanding shares. The total deal size was $61.4m.
The acquisition was done through Essar Capital Finance (ECF) with Essar Services Holdings (ESHL) as person acting in concert. Following the acquisition of Avaya's 59.13% stake in AGC Networks and the subsequent open offer, Essar's stake in AGC Networks, previously known as Avaya GlobalConnect, has now become 79.13%.
Following the successful closure of the transaction, AGC Networks will function independently. AGC's board has been reconstituted with Ayaya's representatives stepping down, and S K Jha taking charge as the managing director along with its Jt. managing director, Anil Nair. The current management of AGC is expected to continue to spearhead the business.
Earlier in May, Essar had announced the acquisition of Avaya's stake in AGC Networks, which is a leading player in the contact centre, unified communications, and networking space as a solutions integrator.
"We warmly welcome AGC Networks employees into the Essar family. AGC perfectly complements Essar's young and fast growing solutions integration arm and we have definitive plans to take this business global. AGC Networks is an important block in our overall 'customer experience' portfolio. We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with AGC's existing partners, customers and vendors who can look forward to benefiting from Essar's global scale, depth, and spread," said Aparup Sengupta, managing director and global CEO of Essar's IT and BPO vertical.
S K Jha, president, Essar's IT vertical, said: "AGC Networks, with its cutting edge solutions and roster of marquee clients, provides a great synergy with our systems integration business. Customers will now have an extended portfolio of services, that include unified communication, networking, information security, and applications, to chose from. In the immediate future, we plan to aggressively market our joint solutions in new geographies like the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific."
With AGC Networks under its fold, Essar's IT is now a formidable player in the solutions integration space with a wide array of services portfolio and best-of-breed vendor partnerships. The business worldwide has about 2,000 employees operating out of nine countries.
