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Friday Corporation acquires Business Information Division of Vans Information

Friday Corporation thus completes two acquisitions in two years

agencyfaqs! news bureau

NEW DELHI

In a stock-swap deal, Delhi-based Friday Corporation has acquired the operations of the Business Information Division of Vans Information Ltd, a lead player in the business information market in India. This acquisition, completed on May 6, is Friday Corporation's second in two years. With this the company hopes to strengthen its offering and become a one-stop shop in the business information services industry in India.

Talking about the acquisition, Vishal Dhal, chief operating officer, Friday Corporation, said, "This acquisition will help us bolster our offering for business information by combining India Informer, India's largest business intelligence resource that aggregates more that 140 business information resources on India with vans.com and Vans Electronic Library, both established products in the Information space with a combined user base of over 300 businesses."

In a similar move last year, Friday Corporation took over Matrix Information Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Kotak Mahindra Finance Ltd. Matrix Information Services was set up in 1996 and has positioned itself in the web-based electronic information distribution segment in the content solutions business.

The acquisition has strong fit, believes the company brass. Friday Corporation provides a wide range of business information products and services, which range from newsletters to content management for website, Intranet and digital solutions for the enterprise. On its part, vans.com is a content aggregator that tracks over 15,000 companies, 300 industries and 19 broad categories. This information, updated daily, is sourced from over 30 primary and 110 secondary sources that include major financial newspapers, business magazines, industry journals, government sources and major Stock Exchanges (over 300 snapshot reports are provided on a daily basis).

Each month, vans.com generates over 150 research reports covering business news on different sectors of the Indian economy that can be accessed through unique software, specially designed to help locate the precise business information one is looking for.

Vans Electronic Library is a full-text collection of leading Indian daily, weekly, fortnightly and monthly publications on a CD-ROM, published under license from various media groups.

From the point of view of its clients, the acquisition makes good sense, believes the Friday Corporations brass. Dhar said, "Since the time we started our operations in the information services industry a whole lot of players have sprung up offering different types of data/solutions - both off-line and on-line. Till now, if a client wanted a whole gamut of information he had to deal with a bunch of providers and pay a much higher price. Now, with the combined services of India Informer, vans.com and Vans Electronic Library, the client will get all the stuff under one roof, at much less cost."

Talking about the plans of Friday Corporation, company sources added, "Friday Corporation plans to strengthen it offices in Mumbai and Delhi. Together with these and the company's offices in Bangalore and Kolkata, Friday Corporation hopes to reach out to an extended community, becoming the only company in India that offers end-to-end content services to businesses in the country." © 2002 agencyfaqs!

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