The report says Ramesh Vangal, who owns 18% in Cambridge, will team up with private equity firm, Carlyle, to buy the equity chunk for $170 million.

As many as 1.3 lakh shares changed hands in the Cambridge Solutions counter on BSE.

After a steep fall during mid-February 2007 and early-March 2007, Cambridge Solutions scrip turned range-bound. It moved between Rs 120 and Rs 131, from early March 2007 to early April 2007.

A joint bid by Carlyle and Vangal will control about 60% stake in Cambridge, which carries an enterprise value of $400 million, the report adds. Promoters of Cambridge have reportedly mandated Lehmann Brothers to scout for potential suitors. Serial entrepreneur Vangal, Rajat Gupta ex-MD of McKinsey, US-Canadian Bronfman family of Seagrams fame, former Pepsi CEO Chris Sinclair and the Chanderia family together hold a little over 59% stake in the Rs 1200-crore company.

Vangal, along with Rajat Gupta and others, set up Scandent Solutions, a broad-based IT services company, more than five years back. Sacndent bought Cambridge Integrated Services, a global outsourcing firm and part of US-based Aon Corporation, for $125 million in 2004. A year later, Scandent Solutions merged with Cambridge Services to form Cambridge Solutions.

Almost two-thirds of Cambridge's revenues come from high-end BPO operations spread across the US, India and Europe. It has a strong presence in the lucrative insurance processing domain with around 2000 of its total 4500 employees located in the US.

It also offers business consulting, software engineering, maintenance and support services as part of the broad-based IT platform.