Unfazed by the sovereign debt crisis in Europe and political protests in the US against offshoring, Indian information technology (IT)-business process outsourcing (BPO) companies are busy acquiring more companies, data reveal.

However, these numbers are not comparable to the boom periods of 2007 and 2008. In 2008, the total number of outbound M&A deals for January-June was 45, with a value of $615 million across 19 deals with announced value. Similarly, in 2007, the total number of deals was 30, with announced value of $1,322 million across 14 deals.

“The share of IT & ITeS among M&A deals has gone up quite strongly in 2010, accounting for 40 per cent of the deals from 26 per cent in the same period last year. Given that over 50 per cent of IT & ITeS deals are outbound in nature, Indian IT companies are clearly taking advantage of the lower valuation available in markets like the US (13 deals) and UK (4 deals),” said Arun Natarajan, chief executive officer of Venture Intelligence.