Mumbai, July 1: Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd has hired global consulting firm Accenture to integrate the newly acquired Tyco Global Network with itself. The Tatas-owned international long distance telephony major today completed the $130-million purchase after initiating the acquisition process eight months ago.
VSNL vice--president Govind Shankarnarayan confirmed that the company has appointed Accenture to facilitate the integration process.
“This acquisition is another positive step in our ongoing drive to offer global connectivity and efficient communications solutions for our customers,” N Srinath, head of operations at VSNL said.
The management responsibility of Tyco Global following the acquisition will be assigned to VSNL International ? the Videsh Sanchar arm leads the company’s global expansion with offices in Virginia, New Jersey, London, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Singapore and Tokyo at present.
VSNL hopes to recoup its $130-million investment in Tyco in the next three to four years.
Kishore Chaukar, a director at VSNL said, “Normally the recovery of an investment of this magnitude takes five-six years, but due to the ready business and synergy, we hope to recoup our money quicker.”
“The revenues of Tyco are estimated at $90-100 million and its income and profits will start reflecting in the books of VSNL International from the July-September quarter of 2005-06,” Chaukar added. Teams from VSNL and TGN would prepare investment plans in the next three months, he said.
However, VSNL will have to absorb over 200 employees of the cable network company.
Tyco has an undersea cable network of over 60,000 km spreading North America, Europe and Asia. With this network now in its fold, VSNL will now be able to provide more bandwidth for connectivity to carriers, IT and BPO firms.
Chaukar said this acquisition would help VSNL to do business beyond India. Earlier, the Tata group company could only deal with two-way business traffic moving in and out of India.
“The combination of Tyco’s assets and the deep network penetration of VSNL throughout India will allow VSNL to design saleable connectivity solutions between all key global business centres through a single point of contact,” said Vinod Kumar, president, VSNL International.
