Speaking to eFE, Dr Kanodia also said that the company has set aside about Rs 100 crore for acquisitions, and is currently pursuing acquisition of a listed company in the UK. Regarding plans to tap the capital markets, Dr Kanodia said he was actively evaluating two overseas options in the US - Nasdaq and NYSE. "Both exchanges have been making their pitches and we are in the process of deciding between them" says Dr Kanodia. When asked how he ranks the relative merits of the two exchanges, he said: "the Nasdaq has been a lot more volatile than the NYSE, but having said that, the Nasdaq has become the destination for technology stocks, so really we have to take a call on this," he added.

The company plans its domestic listing "earliest by January 2001 and latest by April 2001," according to Dr Kanodia.

The company had earlier outlined its plans to list Datamaticcs Technologies first domestically and later overseas, followed by a listing of Datamatics Ltd in the same order. "We plan the overseas listing of Datamatics Technologies anywhere between 6 to 12 months from the time of the domestic listing," says Dr Kanodia.

The company plans to dilute 10 per cent in each of its public offerings for Datamatics Technologies.

Referring to the latest acquisition of Saztec International, Dr Kanodia said: "The key advantage here is that they are an American company which really helps in the marketing process. The moment a client is confronted with a Nasdaq-listed American company in place of an `Indian' one, the prices are higher and our margins automatically improve," he added.

Dr Kanodia said the management team in the acquired company will remain the same and so will the board of directors, which will now have representatives from Datamatics.

Saztec has a subsidiary each in the UK and Germany and three offices in the US.