Sunil Wadhwani, co-founder of Igate Corp. said the company has entered into "a definitive agreement to buy out GMR group's 51 percent stake in Quintant Services Ltd and also intends to acquire the balance" providing certain conditions are met.

Wadhwani said the acquisition would provide his firm with about 680 million rupees in assets, including 600 million rupees in cash.

"It will also provide us with Quintant's domain expertise in banking, insurance and financial expertise and their proprietary tools and framework," he said.

Quintant Services Ltd. was formed in January 2003 and currently has 64 employees, most of whom hold a stake in the company.

It offers mortgage processing and research, commercial credit processing and claims processing.

"Outsourcing is the next big wave and the acquisition will propel Igate into the fast-growing business process outsourcing space," Wadhwani said.

Igate Global Solutions, the Indian subsidiary of Igate Corp, employs over 3,000 people in 19 offices and has six offshore sites and two offshore development centers. Its main client is General Electric.

The parent firm, which is listed on the NASDAQ market in the US, has more than 500 clients.

All the employees of Quintant will be absorbed into the outsourcing arm of Igate called Igate Business Services.

"The idea is to be among the top three in the Indian outsourcing space," Wadhwani said.

Igate also announced the appointment of the former marketing head of Infosys, Phaneesh Murthy, as the chief executive officer of Igate Global Solutions.

Murthy had been the highest paid employee of Infosys but resigned from the company following a sexual harassment case which was settled out of court in May for three million dollars.

Former employee Reka Maximovitch last year filed the case in a California court against the company and Murthy, alleging wasteful termination and sexual harassment.

Murthy, who was an advisor to Quintant, denied the allegations.

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