The deal covers all its liabilities, assets and manpower. Gordon Herbert had sought shareholders' approval for selling the running business along with its steel trading division.

This development is a part of the company's new strategy to focus on the burgeoning infotech industry and exit from the steel engineering construction, manufacturing and trading activities. The net profit of the company during the fiscal-ended February 29, 2000 (14 months) was Rs 1.01 crore on a total income of Rs 261.11 crore.

Gordon Herbert is looking at venturing into areas like IT-enabled services, media and entertainment in a big way, the company's chairman Vinay Rai said in its latest annual report. The company is also planning to set up a representative office in the US to cater to foreign IT markets.

In order to give a boost to these plans, Gordon Herbert has acquired the entire business of Selectronic Equipment and Services Pvt Ltd. Selectronic is a leading medical transcription (MT) companies with a manpower of about 250 medical transcriptionists.

Selectronic, which is also offering training to MT professionals, has a transcription capacity in excess of 1.5 million lines per month. Gordon is planning to set up an office in Boston for the sales and support of its MT business.

According to Rai, the medical transcription industry is a $18 billion market in the US and Gordon plans to tap a part of the market share by offering 24-hours a day service.

Selectronic guarantees a 24-hour turn-around time and an average accuracy level of 98 per cent as calculated by the American Association of Medical Transcriptionist guidelines.