Aptech has acquired the education business of the film and animation studio company, Maya Entertainment for Rs 76 crore. The IT education services firm Aptech will pay by cash and equity shares to shareholders of Maya Entertainment.

Ketan Mehta and Deepa Sahi promoted Maya Entertainment is backed by investors including Enam Securities, Bhukhanwala Holdings, Intel Capital and Concept Advertising. The company focuses on two areas, studio and education.

Its studio business has a production studio for animation, visual effects and gaming content while in the education sector it is involved in training in animation and visual effects in India and abroad. It runs under the name Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics (MAAC) in the education sector.

The CEO and MD of Aptech, Ninad Karpe said, "The value of Rs 76 crore has been frozen but discussions are still on how much will be paid out as cash and how much will be equity."

Aptech will issue 2.2 million shares to existing shareholders of Maya for acquiring 100% stake in the company. At current prices the shares are valued at Rs 172 a piece. The issue will make up 4.5% of the diluted equity base of Aptech.

Maya's animation business will merge operations with Aptech's own Arena Multimedia. Maya has an animation studio spread over 22,000 sq. ft in Mumbai and another animation studio is in the national capital Delhi, which opened in 2008. It currently works with international TV series and has a capacity of 60 artists.

Aptech has over the time expanded its presence in the country and abroad. It is now present through more than 700 centres across 35 countries such as Vietnam, Turkey, Nigeria, Fiji, Yemen, Sudan, South Africa, Malaysia and Philippines and additional 250 centers in China.

The company focuses on two segments namely, retail and non retail. Its retail segment consists of global IT, multimedia training and N-Power while the non-retail segment consists of government projects and training solutions.