HCL Technologies to buy Geometric Ltd in all-stock deal

Geometric Ltd said it will sell its IT services business to HCL Technologies Ltd in an all-stock deal valued at Rs. 12.37 billion, as HCL looks to strengthen its engineering and automotive services portfolio.

Geometric shareholders will receive 10 shares in HCL for every 43 shares of Geometric as part of the stock-swap.

The deal, which does not include Geometric's 58 percent stake in its 3DPLM joint venture with France's Dassault Systemes, values the rest of company at about Rs. 12.37 billion ($186 million) based on the closing prices of HCL Tech and Geometric stock on Friday.

In a separate transaction, Geometric has also agreed to offload its 3DPLM ownership to Dassault Systemes, for which Geometric shareholders will receive one preference shares in 3DPLM worth 68 rupees for every Geometric share, valuing the JV stake at about Rs. 4.41 billion Indian ($66 million).

The two deals value Geometric at about Rs. 16.78 billion, or about a 32 percent premium to its market capitalisation of Rs. 12.71 billion at Friday's closing price.

The deal comes at a time when Indian IT firms are looking to strengthen their product portfolios as these firms transition away servicing deals to a higher-margin digital business model.

"(The deal) provides several cross–sell and up–sell opportunities as the customers will benefit from a unique services portfolio of end–to–end engineering, R&D, digital technologies and internet of things capabilities," said G.H Rao, HCL Tech's president of engineering and R&D services.

Mumbai-based Geometric, which was set up as a unit of Indian conglomerate Godrej and Boyce before being spun off, specialises in providing IT consulting services to engineering clients.