iGate buys Patni for $1.2 billion

The three Patni brothers—Narendra, Gajendra and Ashok—triggered Indian IT's biggest consolidation move when they agreed to sell the country’s seventh largest technology services firm, Patni Computer Systems, to iGate Corp. The deal is valued at $1.2 billion. The deal reiterates that Indian information technology, an entrepreneurial story for the last three decades, is now a play for the lion-hearted, something shown by the much smaller but far more ambitious Nasdaq-listed iGate Corp. The $300 million iGate is ringing up debt in excess of $700 million to finance the transaction. It will be assisted in the buyout by Apax Partners and will issue an open offer by April. NR Narayana Murthy was an employee of Patni before he went on to create Infosys. iGate CEO Phaneesh Murthy was originally an NRN prodigy.