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Shareholders seal IMRglobal deal
By MARK ALBRIGHT
© St. Petersburg Times, CGI Group Inc. will literally raise its corporate flag in Clearwater Monday after IMRglobal Corp. shareholders Friday approved a $438-million acquisition of the high tech service company. Montreal-based CGI said the deal creates the fourth-largest independent information technology service company in North America, adding IMR-global's 3,000 employees to its own 10,000. The acquisition was approved by 90 percent of the IMRglobal shareholders who voted at a meeting in Manhattan. IMRglobal's corporate headquarters in Clearwater will become one of CGI's business hubs, and employment will increase from its current 450 workers if the company's ambitious plans to become a bigger global player pan out. The IMRglobal name will disappear. "If we're successful in replicating what we have already done in Canada, Clearwater will be one of our three or four centers of excellence, and new jobs will be created," Serge Godin, chairman and chief executive of CGI, said in a conference call from New York. "There is remarkably little overlap" between the two companies' client lists and business specialties. CGI has been reliant on serving the telecommunications industry. IMRglobal, which had revenues of $256-million in 2000, has been staking a claim in the health care and insurance industries. The deal increases CGI's business in the United States by $165-million a year. IMRglobal chairman and CEO Satish Sanan, who controls 27.3 percent of IMRglobal's shares, was named president of its operations in the United States, Pacific and Asia and will remain based in Clearwater. He got a two-year employment contract with a $1-million annual salary and bonus and holds about a 6 percent stake in CGI. The all-stock transaction gives IMRglobal stockholders 1.5974 Class A subordinated shares of CGI for each share of IMRglobal stock they hold. IMRglobal shareholders will own 19 percent of CGI. CGI, which is 41 percent controlled by Bell Canada, has grown in six years from annual revenues of $60-million to $1.3-billion. Most of the growth came from a series of acquisitions, eleven of them in the past year. - Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8252.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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From the Times Business report
From the AP
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