TCS back in talks to acquire Dell's Perot IT business

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is back in talks to acquire Dell's Perot IT business after a disagreement over the price had ended initial talks. The company is now in the race with US-based Cognizant to acquire Perot.

According to an Economic Times (ET) report, TCS left when the asking price was too high. However, over the past two weeks there has been more movement on the price from Dell. They have yet to reach upon an agreed price.

Dell has put a $5-billion (Rs 33,140 crore) price tag for the acquisition Perot. This comes at a time when India's $146-billion IT industry faces a slow down in growth with top clients cutting spends on technology or take up software projects in-house.

Until now, Dell has received bids from, TCS, Cognizant and Atos SE. However, Dell is not getting the price it wants considering that the value of Perot's business had depreciated over the years amid large scale technology shifts, said the ET report.

In 2009, Dell acquired Perot for $3.9 billion (Rs 25,849.2 crore). It had generated about $2.6 billion (Rs 17,232.8 crore) in annual revenue when it was acquired.

During the initial talks TCS had bid below $4 billion, while Cognizant bid $4.2 billion and Atos $4.3 billion (Rs 28,500.4 crore), the report said.

TCS currently has an annual revenue of over $16 billion (Rs 1.06 lakh crore), while Cognizant is a little over $12 billion (Rs 79,536 crore) annually. The acquisition of Perot by Cognizant could change the standings of the IT companies in India.