ISLAMABAD, Jan 8: Aqcel Group, one of the leading exporters of IT based solutions in Pakistan, announced its merger with the Danish based IT giant Mondo, on Monday. It is the first ever merger between a Pakistani and European public listed IT company.

Speaking at a press conference at a local hotel, Aqcel CEO Rana Saad said that the merger was a huge step. “It creates a great opportunity for the Pakistani IT industry to create linkages with relatively untapped European IT market. I am confident that the combined synergies and tremendous demand for IT resources in Europe will put us on the right track to be one of the first IT organisations in Pakistan employing more than 1,000 IT professionals."

Aqcel was a pioneer in the IT outsourcing and development market, and since 1997 it had been delivering development solutions based on Microsoft technology worldwide. Aqcel was also among the largest suppliers of Microsoft CRM solutions.

The Aqcel Group expected a 2007 turnover of approximately $0.8 million. With the merger, Mondo expected its own turnover for 2007 to be US$18 million.

"The Aqcel Group suits Mondo perfectly, and brings us a great number of benefits from day one. The most important is that more than 300 highly-qualified and certified employees in the Ukraine, Pakistan and Denmark bring us an injection of new expertise that is almost impossible to achieve in Denmark and Scandinavia,” said Mondo CEO Anders Chr. Andersen.

Growth in our field was so great that the market even had difficulty educating qualified staff – but now we were bringing in a top-qualified engine that would be capable of dealing with the largest assignments, Anders said.

“At a stroke, we also get Denmark's best-qualified and most successful Microsoft CRM department, and that strengthens Mondo Solutions considerably. This all brings us a long way forward in our consolidation strategy in the IT services market, and that is good reason to be extremely satisfied," he said.