Thiruvananthapuram: German-based Cronos Group, the largest privately held consulting company for utilities in Germany, has acquired 100 per cent shares of IT firm AES. "The deal has been inked and they have now become part of us, but will continue to be known as AES. This is being done since their name is already quite well known in the market here," Joachim Cramer, CEO of Cronos, told reporters here Tuesday. Cronos, which recently recorded a turnover of 40 million Euro, provides high quality consulting services and IT solutions for all power sector companies in Germany and Austria, and is officially a special expertise partner of the business software company SAP. AES started functioning in Technopark, the campus for IT companies here, in 2007. The company has been associated with German clients, which facilitated its acquisition by the Cronos group. "Right now, there are 50 employees at AES and in a year's time it will rise to 500 because AES will now look after our business in all English-speaking countries, besides new markets in Middle East and Africa," Cramer informed. Apart from involvement in the software department, AES is also considering training programmes for SAP. "We find the biggest hindrance is lack of properly trained engineers in SAP. When we meet up with their officials in the country, this would be one aspect we will take up with them," said Manoj N. Sukumaran, chief executive, AES. In view of their future plans, AES will relocate to a more spacious office at the Technopark after the acquisition.