Flextronics' CEO on the cos' plans for India

Singapore-based contract electronics manufacturer Flextronics has made several aggressive strategic investments in India in recent months as part of its move to make India its global center for software product design and infrastructure.

In May, Flextronics had led a $10 million investment in Silicon Valley and Bangalore, India based chip design firm inSilica. In June, Flextronics had acquired a 55% stake in publicly listed telecom software firm Hughes Software Systems for $226 million in an all cash deal. It late August, it acquired Chennai-based communications software firm FutureSoft (formerly Future Software) for 440 million.

Here are some extracts from Business Today magazine's interview with Flextronics' CEO Michael Marks:

On the Hughes acquisition:

We have really big plans for Hughes. We have a big infrastructure business and we believe we can grow the company (Hughes) faster and derive greater value for our entire company than what Hughes would on its own. So that's the judgement we made, and, in all seriousness, we won't be able to tell whether we got a fair value for a while yet. Winning by bidding is not winning. We have valued the company based on the overall value it adds, and Hughes is an outstanding opportunity for us.

On the prospects for more acquistions:

Certainly nothing major. We did Hughes because of their telecom domain expertise, we did FutureSoft because of their data communication domain expertise. If we can find other companies that have expertise that we need, we'll look at them. But we've got our hands full right now.

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