Committed to PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW
Vol. 5 Num 1135 Wed. August 08, 2007  
   
Business


Indian IT firm Wipro to buy US outsourcing company


Indian information technology firm Wipro Ltd has said it will buy a US outsourcing firm, Inforcrossing, for $600 million.

The all-cash deal will help Wipro, India's third largest software maker based in Bangalore, the country's Silicon Valley, expand its operations in the world's biggest market.

Infocrossing, which has five different data centres in California, Georgia, Arizona and Nebraska, focuses on infrastructure management, enterprise application and business process outsourcing services.

The signing of the definite agreement for the acquisition between Wipro Technologies, the global IT services arm of Wipro Ltd, and NASDAQ-listed US firm was announced on Monday by Wipro's Chief Financial Officer Suresh Senapaty.

Senapaty replied in the affirmative when asked by reporters in Bangalore if this was the biggest overseas acquisition by Wipro.

The current global IT infrastructure market is estimated at around $150 billion and the global market for remote infrastructure management services will be $ 70 billion in the next few years, say Indian IT industry projections.

Infocrossing had revenue of $232.4 million and net income of $ 9.3 million for 12 months ending on March 31 this year.

Wipro has made a series of small acquisitions overseas in the last few years.

For Wipro, IT infrastructure business reached $ 260 million at the end of financial year 2006-07 with over 300 clients, including 200 in India. The company expects the business to go up to one billion dollars in the next two to three years, said Wipro Technologies Chief Financial Officer Lakshminarayana.

Wipro Technologies has identified global IT infrastructure services as a key driver of growth for the company, said Wipro Global IT Services President Suresh Vaswani.