INTERVIEW - Geometric scouts $10 mln U.S. or German buy

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Engineering services firm Geometric Ltd(GEOM.BO) is looking to buy a $10 million firm in the U.S. or Germany by end of this financial year and has closed in on a couple of prospective candidates, a top official said on Friday.

"We are looking at an acquisition in the embedded space of around $10-million kind of a business. I think, this $10 million, we will be able to manage through internal accruals and some amount of borrowings," Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Ravishankar G told Reuters in an interview.

The company is looking for embedded technology firms -- software or a hardware device pre-programmed to perform a specific task -- in the automotive space, he said.

"My target is to see that we should be able to close it in this financial year," Ravishankar said, adding he closed in on a couple of potential targets, in U.S. and Germany.

In 2006, Geometric had acquired U.S.-based Modern Engineering. The unit that had been making losses has been turned around and is expected to ring in profits from this year, he added.

WAGE HIKE

The company, which gave an average salary hike of 14 percent to its offshore employees in June quarter, is to announce a salary increase for its onshore staff.

"There will be a revision in onsite salary, about 3.5-4 percent is the budgeted revision. This will happen in this quarter (ending Sept)," Ravishankar said, adding it has around 500 personnel working onshore.

The company also intends to recruit 100 freshers this year, while latent hiring would be "need-based". Its total headcount stood at 3,144 as on June-end, a 6.35 percent jump from March quarter.

"We feel the recession is behind us, we are seeing good amount of traction. The discretionary spend that customers had reduced during the earlier years is now kind-of coming back."

The company has posted a 27 percent increase in net profit at 105.85 million rupees in June quarter.

Shares of the company closed down 1.63 percent at 72.45 rupees a share in a weak Mumbai market.

(Editing by Harish Nambiar)

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