i-flex Solutions

i-flex Solutions Ltd on October 05, 2007 has announced that it has acquired a 100% stake in Castek Software Inc. i-flex board has approved the acquisition today and the transaction is expected to close by March 2008.

Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Castek is a provider of core insurance-business processing systems for large- and mid-sized Property and Casualty (P&C) insurers.

In August 2005, i-flex had entered into an equity financing arrangement with Castek, that allowed i-flex to become its largest shareholder. Since then, i-flex held 59.9% of Castek's shares on a fully diluted basis. On completion of the latest transaction, i-flex will own all the outstanding shares of Castek and it will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of i-flex.

"Castek's product is proven and is being used by two large North American customers. With i-flex's wide market reach, the potential to expand is now great. Ever since we forayed into insurance a couple of years ago, we can offer insurance Companies a scalable model of onsite, near shore and offshore services. Our full service dedicated units focus on both technology and business solutions, i-flex also has a dedicated Competency Center around the Insure3 platform", says N R K Raman, Managing Director and CEO, of the Company.

Castek's flagship product — Insure3 [pronounced Insure Cube] - is a SOA based Full Policy Lifecycle administration software which is delivered through a platform of best-of-breed, pre-integrated software components.

Celent, a Boston based research firm, forecasts that globally P&C insurance carriers will spend more than US$39 billion on software and services in 2008.

Castek's growing client list includes some of the biggest names in the US insurance market, and the flexibility of this suite makes it adaptable for implementation in countries across Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Since the commencement of its relationship with i-flex, Castek has acquired TMM (Tokio Marine Management) and GAIC (Great American Insurance Co.) as customers in the US.