India's
second largest IT services company Cognizant on Wednesday
announced the acquisition of French consulting firm Equinox Consulting for an undisclosed amount - its second European acquisition this year and its fifth in the consulting space since 2008.
Equinox Consulting provides business consulting services across investment banking, asset management, retail banking, insurance, and specialized financial services. The nine year-old company is known for regulatory consulting expertise, "spanning Basel III, Solvency II, EMIR/Dodd-Frank, FATCA and MiFID, in addition to strategy consulting, organisation and operations management, change management, and HR consulting", Cognizant said in a press release.
About 160 consulting professionals will join Cognizant and the acquisition will add $40 million in annualized revenues to the company.
The acquisition shows that Cognizant is beefing up its consulting practice as well as its presence in Europe. Currently, most of its revenues are generated in the United States. Europe just accounts for about 18 per cent of the pie. Consulting currently generates six to seven per cent of overall revenues. The company's other acquisitions in the consulting space include Strategic Vision Consulting (US) in 2008, Pepperweed Advisors (US) in 2009, PIPC (UK) and Galileo (France) in 2010.
While Cognizant is fairly strong in the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Benelux, it had little presence in Germany and France - two of Europe's largest markets. With the current purchase, along with an acquisition of C1 Group companies in Germany earlier this year, Cognizant is attempting to fill a gap.
The acquisition also reinforces the view that Europe is finally opening up to global sourcing.
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