Thomson Reuters' arm may be a booster shot for Infy

The buzz about IT major Infosys buying Thomson Reuters' healthcare business in the US has been getting stronger. CNBC-TV18's Sunanda Jayaseelan finds out if this possible acquisition could prove to be the booster shot that Infosys needs.

After having lost out on acquiring consulting company Axon in 2008, this could be Infosys' lucky shot. The IT major is said to be in the final stages of acquiring Thomas Reuters' healthcare arm, which has been on the block since June of this year.

The healthcare arm has three units – claims, clinical content and analytics for hospitals. The arm clocks in revenues of USD 450 million in 2010 reportedly. According to sources, the valuation of this profitable business comes in between USD 500 million to in excess of USD 700 million. The unit has about 2500 employees and operates solely out of the US.

The Thomson Reuters' healthcare business derives its revenues solely from the US market, which makes it such an interesting acquisition target because most IT companies get the majority of their revenues from that geography.

Most of the big boys like TCS , Infosys, HCL , Wiproand Satyam have expressed interest in this business. The experts tracking developments have also informed that Thomson Reuters has mandate Morgan Stanley as the investment banker for this transaction. When tried to reach out to them, we were unable to get any confirmation on this news.

Infosys in the past indicated that it intends to derive more of its revenues going forward from non-linear consulting-based businesses. This is reason why this Thomson Reuters' healthcare business is interesting for the company.

Infosys gets only about 1.1% of its total revenues from the healthcare vertical compared to TCS' 6% and Wipro's 11%. It has indicated in the past that it could look at an acquisition in this space among others like public utility, both in the US and Europe to boost revenues.

Moreover, experts mentioned if this acquisition goes through, it will create local jobs in the US critical at this juncture, given the allegations Infosys has been facing over visa misuse.