Bangalore: ALTEN Group, a leading European Engineering Consulting Group headquartered at Paris, today announced its foray into India with the acquisition of Chennai & Bangalore -based Calsoft Labs. The acquisition includes all tangible and intangible assets and retention of management, employees & customers of Calsoft Labs. Calsoft Labs now a 100% owned subsidiary, will retain its brand name and operate as   part of the ALTEN Group.

Speaking about the acquisition, Mr. Simon Azoulay, Founder, Chairman and CEO, ALTEN Group said “This acquisition is aligned with our long term strategy to substantially grow our Work Package (project team and dedicated structure) based business and maintain “high end” positioning in Technology Consulting and Engineering. Calsoft Labs  with its significant experience in outsourced product development services in segments such as Telecommications, Embedded and Software products is a perfect match for ALTEN.   Our focus for next 3 years would be to expand our presence in India by adding top notch engineering talent to the existing teams and offer scalable, quality driven offshore product development capability to our customer base in Europe.”

ALTEN is the European leader in Technology Consulting and Engineering (TCE) and has about 12,600 employees in 11 countries worldwide. ALTEN’s market covers the full range of consulting services, technical assistance, performance of fixed price projects and outsourced platforms in the field of Technology Consulting and Engineering (TCE) as well as Information Systems and Networks.

Mr. Gerald Attia, Deputy CEO and co-founder, ALTEN said, “We are proud to acquire Calsoft Labs to mark our entry into one of world’s most dynamic and fastest growing economies. This acquisition would not only add additional off-shore capabilities in India for worldwide ALTEN projects but also provide ALTEN with an opportunity to leverage its technical expertise in growth segments such as Aerospace, Defense, Automobiles & Energy for domestic India market.”

Calsoft Labs has more than ten years experience in providing product engineering services to customers worldwide with infrastructure facilities in Bangalore, Chennai & Mysore employing around 650 people. Calsoft Labs operates dedicated product development centers for customers and also implements complex projects on a turnkey basis for Telecom, Consumer Electronics and Software Product companies.

Commenting on the deal, Mr. Ramandeep Singh, CEO, Calsoft Labs said “This acquisition has made Calsoft Labs a part of the €916 M ALTEN Group which would provide new growth opportunities for the business and the cross border training and development opportunities for the employees of Calsoft Labs. We will maintain Calsoft Labs as an independent entity within the ALTEN group and continue to concentrate on the OPD business and expand our operations in India & US. We will also look for new projects from European market with the ALTEN support and customer relationships. With this association we aim to grow at the rate of 20-30% annually and also double our team strength to 1500 by 2014.”