A few days ago, Reuters reported the deal is close to being sealed, writing about a $550 million deal, by citing people familiar with the matter.
„The acquisition would enable Cognizant to expand its offerings in digital and cloud services to take on outsourcing services rivals Accenture (ACN.N) and IBM (IBM.N) more effectively“, Reuters reported.
Cognizant had a turnover of over $14.8 billion in 2017.
“Softvision announces its global development to unprecedented level through the transaction with Cognizant, one of the world’s largest players, with more than 261,000 employees, included in Fortune 500 and ranked third in top 10 of Global IT Service Providers. The transaction will be completed by the end of 2018. With a history of over 20 years, Softvision is a trusted transformational partner for its portfolio of customers ranked in Fortune 500, of great renown worldwide in various fields of activity. The transaction with Softvision is an important step in Cognizant’s strategy, as the synergy created by joining the competences of both companies place Cognizant among the world’s most reputable software companies, providing its customers with innovative solutions scalable at global levels”, the company said in an announcement.
Softvision founder Laurentiu Russo said the transaction is spectacular and announces a period of period of abrupt growth for the group. “It is a spectacular step in the history of Softvision, which started 20 years ago in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. (…) Our success is totally based on the unrivalled expertise of our software engineers in Romania, and now, Cognizant will bring us the global scale we need. We shall keep providing new generation software solutions for the world’s large brands”.
In Romania, Softvision holds several development studios in the cities of Cluj, Baia Mare, Bucharest, Timisoara and Iasi and had on average 1,139 employees in 2017, according to Finance Ministry data. Softvision is one of the ten largest employers in the Romanian software industry, by the average staff numbers in 2017, as per a ZF analysis based on Finance Ministry data. Softvision reported a turnover of RON195.9 million (EUR42.9 million) in Romania in 2017, up 8% year-on-year.
In 2016, Softvision merged with Software Paradigms International (SPI), one of the largest companies in the United States, as part of its global expansion plans. The compay did not provide data on its 2017 revenue.