Japan's NTT Data to buy US IT firm: report

Japanese telecom giant NTT's data communications unit plans to buy US IT firm Keane for 1.2 billion dollars as a strong yen and good earnings back Japanese firms' acquisitions, a report said Thursday.

NTT Data is in the final stages of talks with the Massachusetts-based information technology service provider to buy it for slightly more than 100 billion yen (1.2 billion dollars), the Nikkei economic daily said.

The two companies are aiming to strike an accord by the end of October, the paper said without naming sources.

NTT Data, which is 54 percent owned by NTT, declined to comment on the report, saying in a brief statement that it would let investors know promptly if it makes any decisions that should be disclosed.

Shares in the subsidiary rose by 1.09 percent to 249,700 yen on Thursday morning, outperforming a 0.2 percent gain in the benchmark Nikkei index.

"It's a positive strategy to pursue expansion in various regions as the company aims to go global," Naoki Fujiwara, fund manager at Shinkin Asset Management, told Dow Jones Newswires.

Parent NTT announced in July that it would acquire South African IT firm Dimension Data for 2.1 billion British pounds (3.2 billion US dollars).