CHENNAI: PreMedia Global USA Inc (PMG), the Ohio-based knowledge and content service provider with operations in Chennai, has undergone a metamorphosis following a series of strategic mergers and acquisitions in the past few months.

Floated by Kapil Viswanathan and his elder sister Kami V. Narayan, PMG has just acquired the business of Westwords, a content management company headquartered in Utah. It has since decided to amalgamate it with a Massachussetts-based publishing services provider, which has come under PMG's fold a few days ago.

In October last, PMG merged itself with the Ohio-based Beacon group to create a seamless U.S.-India operation with cutting-edge capability in XML (extensible markup language) based content production. With the completion of these deals, PMG has emerged as a name to reckon with in the U.S. with a dominant presence in all the key market segments and employing 300 people in Chennai and the U.S.

In an interaction with The Hindu, Mr. Kapil Viswanathan said the group funded these acquisitions internally by some innovative structuring of the deals.

PMG today is one of the largest vendors serving U.S.-based publishers such as Pearson, Houghton Mifflin and Wiley.

"With US-based project management, strong XML capability and reliable India-based production capacity, PMG offers a one-stop solution to publishers and content developers,'' Ms. Kami Narayan said. The highly automated workflow enabled PMG to offer faster turnaround time of as little as seven days, Mr. Kapil Viswananthan said.

PMG began its operations in March 2005 with a team of six employees with seed financing provided by the co-founders' family.

Mr. Kapil Viswanathan and Ms. Kami Narayan are the children of late S. Viswanathan, who was Chairman of Enfield India Limited. The Viswanathan family is currently the promoter of Enfield Agrobase, a company producing certified organic farm products. PMG's advisory board consists of Prof. Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School and Tom Manning, a former Chairman of Cap Gemini and currently an early-stage investor based in Hong Kong.

Though hailing from an industrialist family, the brother-sister duo had stints as employees elsewhere before charting their joint business journey.

While Ms. Kami Narayan served in OfficeTiger and Arthur Anderson, Mr. Kapil Viswanathan had worked in TCS and Flextronics before floating PMG.

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