NIIT found itself ticking in early trades on Friday on news that it has acquired an US-based knowledge solutions company.

The scrip of the leading global IT solutions provider edged up 0.91% to Rs 133.55 by 10:10 IST. But that was lower than an earlier high achieved on Friday of Rs 133.85. It had also reached a low of Rs 131. A total of 59,466 NIIT shares were registered as volumes on BSE by 10:10 IST.

At the same time, the BSE Sensex stood at 3,249.46, up 1.95 points.

On Wednesday, after market hours, NIIT announced the acquisition of CongnitiveArts. The latter designs and delivers simulation-based knowledge solutions. The new acquisition is expected to give NIIT access to the American corporate knowledge solutions market. With this acquisition, NIIT Technologies will add a consulting team of 40 professionals and also gain access to Fortune 500 customers in the retail and financial services verticals.

CognitiveArts was formed in 1994 as a commercial spin-off of the Northwestern University and benefited from the multimillion-dollar investments in cognitive research by major corporate and government sponsors.

Last week, NIIT announced the acquisition of online education company e-Gurucool which offers school tutions over the Internet. NIIT has taken over the content, technology and brand of e-Gurucool. With this acquisition, NIIT has moved rapidly ahead to emerge as a formidable leader in the non-formal education space, it said. It expects to earn Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) from this activity by the third year.

NIIT paid Rs 1 crore to buy the content, technology and brand of e-Gurucool.

At the time of announcing its Q1 ended 31 December 2002 results, NIIT said that the company's strategy in the IT education segment is to launch new products and programmes for existing as well as new segments with a view to consolidate its position in the market. Analysts, however, say NIIT may face tough times ahead what with the merger of Aptech with SSI on the cards.

NIIT operates in three segments namely - learning solutions, software services and systems integration and product distribution.

For Q1 ended 31 December 2002, on a consolidated basis, NIIT reduced its losses to Rs 8.6 crore on a 12% rise in sales to Rs 162.30 crore (Rs 1.62 billion).

BSE Code: 500304

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