OREANDA-NEWS. On October 29, 2007 IBS and Borlas Consulting Group announced completion of the merger and formation of the merged company. The merger agreement was signed in April 2007, reported the press-centre of IBS.

The merged company was formed through exchange of asset holding interests without cash payments. 77 per cent of shares in the merged company are held by IBS Group Holding Limited and 23 per cent are held by Warrant Group Ltd representing Borlas shareholders.

The name of the merged company is IBS. It includes all current business segments of IBS, including its subsidiaries IBS DataFort and IBS Platformix, and companies of Borlas Consulting Group. Practices dealing with Oracle business applications and other Oracle technologies have been brought together under the IBS Borlas brand.

The merged company is part of IBS Group Holding Limited.

The chief executive body of the merged company is the Board, which is responsible for developing the strategy and plans of operations, the product policy, operations of production units and subsidiary companies. The Board consists of top managers of IBS and Borlas and is headed by Chairman of the Board and the President. Mr. Sergey Matsotsky has been appointed Chairman of the Board and General Director of the merged company, and Mr. Alexei Ananyin has been appointed President.

Mr. Sergey Matsotsky is responsible for investor relations, the regional policy, and management of production units, finances, human resources, logistics and IT. Mr. Alexei Ananyin is responsible for management of sales and project implementation in strategic industries, vendor relations, product and communications marketing.

The merger resulted in a company that is unique in its financial, human and technology strengths and the absolute leader among Russian provides of IT services, with 7 per cent of the IT services market and over 20 per cent (or nearly four times as much as the nearest competitor) of the business applications implementation segment.

The total headcount exceeds 3,400 employees including over 1,500 certified consultants. IBS currently has the largest consulting team in the Russian IT market, which includes over 400 consultants and designers specializing in implementation of SAP applications and over 500 consultants and designers specializing in implementation of Oracle applications.

The merged company had FY’2006 consolidated revenue of USD 370,5 million. IT services and management consulting services of the merged company account for over 50 per cent of its total revenue, which is considerably higher than the market average.

In the coming three years IBS will seek to continue growing faster than the market and reinforce its leadership in the IT services market (consulting, business applications and IT outsourcing) both by organic growth and through mergers and acquisitions.

According to Alexei Ananyin, President of IBS, “The merger of IBS and Borlas is outstanding in that both of the merging companies are successful, command excellent reputations, have practically no overlapping industry markets and products, possess similar corporate cultures, i.e. perfectly complement each other in terms of experience, practices and solutions. We are already experiencing the benefits of our working together as we won eight tenders and commenced implementation of six new projects totaling over $10 million over the past six months. We seek to continue growing faster than the market and reinforce our positions in IT services.”

According to Sergey Matsotsky, General Director, IBS, “Most importantly, the merger resulted in an absolutely unique team of professionals. We have consolidated the best management and technological experience in the IT industry and have become much stronger and more efficient, and not just larger. Our strategy is to become the core force driving the process of IT industry consolidation. This is a strategy of a national leader, and this is the way we view our company.”