After acquiring payments solution firm ItzCash and e-learning firm Smartclass Educational Services, Ebix Inc, on Friday, bought Pune-based Indus Software Technologies for about $29 million, which includes $5 million of contingent earn out.
As a part of the agreement, the software solutions provider Indus will be integrated into Ebix’s financial exchange EbixCash in India and abroad. A few key Indus business executives will also be absorbed into the EbixCash team. The acquisition of Indus will increase the employee strength of Ebix in India by 900 to nearly 7,200 employees.
Nasdaq-listed Ebix is an international supplier of on-demand software and e-commerce services to the insurance, financial, e-governance and healthcare industries.
“In our vision plan for EbixCash with respect to the area of lending, we see three opportunities: one - powering the technology for lenders in any industry; two – creating a person-to person lending exchange that can be available over the web, e-wallets, mobile phones, white label Corporate intranets and EbixCash outlets to consumers; three – lending services for our EbixCash outlets that allows them the power to borrow and expand their business with EbixCash.” said Robin Raina, chairman, president and chief executive, Ebix, in a statement.
According to Raina, Indus also fits in well with Ebix’s goals of expanding the EbixCash network globally, since it provides an international customer base across Europe, Middle East and South-East Asia.
“Indus provides us now with the ability to interface a person-to-person (P2P) lending exchange into the back-end systems of top lenders in the market place and move data seamlessly across front-end and back-end systems. This will also allow Indus clients to access the 260,000+ physical distribution expanse of EbixCash, along with our strong corporate and electronic network.” Raina added.
In FY2017, Indus had revenues of $22 million and EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) of nearly 17%. Ebix believes that the business can continue to grow at the rate of over 12% to 15% annually with operating margins of 30% or more, once fully integrated.
Ebix expects the acquisition, which was funded using its internal cash reserves, to be immediately accretive to its earnings.The selling price includes $5 million of contingent earnout—a financing arrangement for the purchase of a business in which the seller finances a portion of the purchase price, and payment of this amount is contingent on achieving a predetermined level of future earnings.
Ebix seems to be on a M&A spree in India. Earlier this year, Ebix agreed to acquire CentrumDirect Ltd (CDL), a money exchange platform, for nearly $175 million. In November last year, Ebix acquired Via.com, an omni-channel online travel and assisted e-commerce exchange. The transaction valued the Bengaluru-headquartered firm at an enterprise value of about $74.9 million, in what is one of the largest M&A deals in the online travel agency (OTA) space last year.
