POLARIS SOFTWARE LAB: Riding on a Merger

Merger with Orbitech became effective Employee count nearly doubled CEO arrested, then released in Jakarta. Conflict with Bank Artha Graha unresolved

Almost a year after its merger with Citicorp subsidiary Orbitech was
announced, Polaris has become a significant player in the BFSI space. It now
gets a good 77% of its revenues from this vertical. However, the company’s
revenue growth of 51% includes five months of Orbitech revenues post-merger. In
a more like-to-like comparison, it grew only 2%. Message–though the merger
hasn’t greatly increased revenues, the integration doesn’t seem to have been
a big problem either. The problems came from another end. In December, CEO Arun
Jain was arrested on criminal charges in Jakarta at the behest of one of its
clients, Artha Graha. Though Jain was later released, the issue is yet to be
resolved. The upshot–Polaris spent much of Q4 in confidence-building measures
and devising legal strategies to combat contentions made by BAG.

Chairman & CEO: Arun Jain Start-up year: 1993 Products & services: BFSI products, SW devpt, retail solutions Employees: 4,248 Address: Polaris House, 244, Anna Salai, Chennai 600006 Tel: 28524154 Fax: 28523280 Website: www.polaris.co.in