Accenture in Talks to Acquire Booz&Co

Accenture, one of the world's largest consultancy firms, is reportedly in talks to acquire its rival Booz&Co in a bid to expand its operations.

According to a number of unnamed sources cited by the Wall Street Journal, discussions have taken place between the companies but the deal is not yet confirmed. It is also not clear if there are other potential buyers for Booz.

Booz was part of Booz Allen Hamilton, the company which last hired Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor who leaked secret information on the nation's surveillance programmes. Booz parted company with Booz Allen Hamilton in 2008.

Accenture, which has about 266,000 employees in more than 120 countries, has a market capitalisation of $48bn (£31.4bn, €36.2bn).

The company generated net revenues of $27.9bn in the last fiscal year. The Dublin-based consultancy giant was trading 1.89% higher at 7.14 am in New York.

The company competes with tech giants like International Business Machines and Hewlett-Packard for global enterprise consulting contracts. Accenture has been reporting robust growth for more than two years with strong revenue earned in its outsourcing business.

Meanwhile, Booz posted total revenues of about $1.4bn last year. It employs about 3,000 people in 57 offices across the globe.

Several Acquisitions

Accenture has already snapped up two other companies this year.

Earlier this month Accenture announced that it had completed acquisition of Acquity Group, Anerica's second-largest independent digital marketing company, to help improve its brand experience and eCommerce performance.

Accenture also announced a deal this month to acquire Mortgage Cadence, a loan-origination software company.

The current acquisition talk with Booz, if it comes to fruition, will be one of Accenture's largest-ever deals.

In July 2010, Booz reportedly called off discussions about a possible merger with competitor Kearney.