Noida-based MPS, a global provider of platforms and content solutions for the digital world on February 29 announced the acquisition of Research Square AJE LLC and its subsidiary American Journal Online (Beijing) Information Consulting for $8.4 million.
Rahul Arora, Chairman and CEO of MPS said the company is expected to start contributing from day one. "Currently, the revenues (of the acquired business) are in the ₹200 to ₹250 crore range, operating at a gross margin of 65%. EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation) margins are more modest in the early teens and our goal will be, through the course of 2024, to elevate those early teen EBITDA margins to those similar to MPS margins of close to 30%.”
With this acquisition, the company marks its entry into the business-to-consumer (B2C) marketplace, and also opens up global markets such as China.
“Now a large part of AJE’s revenue actually is through China. So we expect China, on a consolidated basis, to be somewhere between 15 to 20% of our revenue in the future,” Arora said.
Before the acquisition, North America was around 55% of MPS' overall revenue. Europe was the second largest market with 35% share, and 10% came from the rest of the world.
Last year, the company also entered Australia and New Zealand through the acquisition of Liberate Learning.
The acquisition will also help MPS expand its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities with 'Curie', an AI-powered writing assistant that provides intelligent suggestions, improves writing structure, enhances flow, and assists with citations.
AJE is American Journal Experts, an author services company. AJE is a leading scientific language editing service provider and trusted partner to academic and author communities, with over one million manuscripts edited. AJE has a dedicated AI team with the opportunity to enter the AI NLP market, which is expected to grow to $112 billion by 2030 at a CAGR of 25%
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In its Q3FY24, MPS revenue rose to ₹134 crore from ₹132 crore in Q3FY23. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA), margin improved to 33.4% from 31.2% while profit after tax (PAT) remained stable, with a slight increase to ₹30 crore.
The company has a market capitalisation of ₹2,892.85 crore. Its shares have gained 60% over the last year.
(Edited by : Shweta Mungre)
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