Mahindra Satyam buys 51 percent stake in Brazil's Complex IT

Employees at a call centre provide service support to international customers in Bangalore March 17, 2004.

BANGALORE (Reuters) - Mahindra Satyam, a software services unit of India's $15.9 billion Mahindra group, said it acquired a 51 percent stake in Brazil's Complex IT, a provider of consultancy services on the use of SAP AG's (SAPG.DE) business management software.

Satyam paid $6.5 million initially and expects to pay a total of $20-23 million over an 18-24 month period for the 51 percent stake, based on certain pre-agreed milestones being achieved, Arvind Malhotra, the company's head of Latin American operations, told Reuters on Friday.

The company has the option of purchasing the remaining 49 percent as well, Malhotra said.

Complex IT brings 500 staff, customers such as C. Vale Cooperativa Agroindustrial, and annual revenues of about $50 million to Satyam. It also opens up the $36 billion Brazilian IT services market for the Indian provider.

Tech Mahindra (TEML.NS), Satyam's parent company, is looking to make acquisitions to add capabilities and customers as it plans to double its revenue to about $5 billion by 2015.

The company has acquired businesses like the back-office unit of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd (0013.HK) and Comviva, an Indian provider of software for telecommunications carriers, in the fiscal year that ends March 31.

The company has said it expects to complete merging Satyam with itself in March. The combined company, which is expected to get a brand overhaul soon, is the fifth-largest software services provider in India.

(Reporting By Harichandan Arakali; Editing by Prateek Chatterjee and Matt Driskill)