There has been a lot of talk about Oracle being interested in acquiring a stake in the Indian Banking software company "IFLEX".

The U.S. software maker is in discussions with citigroup Inc.'s private equity division over the acquisition Citigroup's equity division owns a 43.1% stake in I-flex.A deal that could be worth more than $650m.

Oracle has apparently lined up a kitty of Rs 3,000 crore for investing into buying out a majority holding in i-flex. Industry sources believe that Oracle would end up owning i-flex solutions entirely, in next 12 to 18 months.

"Otherwise such an investment does not make sense for Oracle. Having partial ownership of a company like i-flex for Oracle would not be 'strategic' in any way," said Partha Iyengar, V-P (research) Gartner India.

i-flex has a combination of products and services business with products contributing about 54 per cent to sales. In 2004-2005, the company posted revenues of Rs 1,140 crore (Rs 11.40 billion).

Citigroup is said to also want to sell its 44% stake in India's Polaris Software Lab Ltd. as per the Financial Express.

Sources 1, 2 & 3Prashanth RaiTag(s): Acquisition, Oracle, BFSI