INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - March 16^th - March 31^st - 2008

PUBLISHING SERVICES PROVIDER PREMEDIA GLOBAL(PMG) ACQUIRES US-BASED GGS BOOK SERVICES

Publishing services provider PreMedia Global (PMG) has completed the acquisition of US-based GGS Book Services for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition will help PMG gain access to capabilities in elearning and animation.

GGS Book Services, a division of GGS Information Services, with a turnover of Rs 80 crore, has employee strength of 300 spread across India and the US. PMG recently secured Rs 72 crore from private equity player JM Financial India Fund in return for a minority stake. The company earlier said the funds would be used to fund expansions and acquisitions.

“The publishing services space, which is vendor-based, is undergoing a huge wave of consolidation. Our growth strategy is to take advantage of the trend and acquire capabilities in new areas,” PMG co-CEO Kapil Viswanathan said in Chennai. With facilities in Chennai and the US state of Ohio, its services include project management, copy editing, graphic reproduction, editorial design, typesetting and conversion of legacy data into XML (extensible markup language). It currently has a headcount of 1,000 and a turnover of Rs 150 crore.

Besides acquisitions, the company plans to grow organically by offering services such as e-learning and expects to double revenues to $40 million next year and its headcount by September. “We will move to a new 240-seat facility at the Ascendas IT park in Chennai in a couple of months, which can accommodate 750 people around three shifts,” co-CEO Kami Narayan said. With a majority of its operations now concentrated in the US, PMG has a natural hedge against the appreciation of the rupee. However, it will explore other markets such as the UK, Europe and Asia to counter currency fluctuations in the long term.

PMG was founded in 2005 by the brother-sister team of Kapil Viswanathan and Kami Narayan. Their father, the late S Viswanathan, was chairman of motorcycle-maker Enfield India. PMG merged in the same year with the Ohio-based Beacon Group and shifted its headquarters to the United States. It has since acquired Westwords, a content management company based in the American state of Utah and merged with publishing services provider Prepress. It counts among its client’s publishers such as Pearson, McGrawHill, Houghton Mifflin, Thomson and Wiley.