Fidelity has hiked its stake in Satyam Computer Services to 6.8 per cent on Friday in bulk buying as reported by the stock exchanges.

Fidelity investment of the stake is estimated at about Rs250 crore. With this purchase, Fidelity is probably the second largest shareholder in the Satyam after L&T.

Fidelity had purchased 3.17 per cent stake earlier this week.

Satyam's filings showed 23 million shares held by Fidelity on 30 September 2008 which is the same number it showed in December filling numbers according to the stock exchanges

Larsen and Toubro holds 12 per cent stake in Satyam and has shown a keen interest in buy out of Satyam. L&T, which held 4 per cent stake earlier had hiked its stake to 12 per cent last week in a surprise move.

LIC holds around 4.34 per cent stake in Satyam.

Fidelity to sell it captive IT unit
Fidelity Investments is looking to sell its India-based IT unit as a cost cutting exercise. Several large IT companies have shown interest in the sale but IBM and Infosys are leading the pack in bid values. Fidelity is a significant client for Infosys which has over 3,000 people working on the account.

The successful bidder will acquire the company's employees and facilities located in Bangalore and Chennai through an upfront cash transaction and will also get a committed multi-year outsourcing contract from Fidelity.

The technology solutions group, or IT services, is part of Fidelity Research & Management Company (FMR) India and has around 2000 employees. It provides captive back office support to Fidelity in the US.

The sale of technology solutions unit involves around 70 per cent of FMR India's employee strength, but does not include those working in business analytics, BPO and implementations.

According to The Economic Times, Fidelity expects to get between $150 million and $180 million for its Indian IT "captive," with competitive bids coming from IBM and Infosys, while Wipro also retains an outside shot at the acquisition

Fidelity outsources around $50 million worth of projects to Infosys every year, it is an over $200-million customer for IBM.

The financial crisis had many financial services giants cutting cost. In recent deals, US bank Citigroup sold its Indian back office to Tata Consultancy Services and UK insurer Aviva sold its captive back office operations to WNS holdings.