ITC plans to take ITC Infotech public: Deveshwar

Mumbai: ITC Limited is planning to come out with a public issue for its information technology (IT) business, ITC Infotech, and hive it off as a separate company over a period of time, its chairman Y C Deveshwar said.

"It (ITC Infotech) is structured as a separate company, not as a division. That''s the only business that we structured as a separate company. That indicates that at a point of time, we could (take ITC Infotech public)," he said on the sidelines of a conference organized by CII.

He, however, said nothing is on the anvil as of now, but added that every other business is a division and the reason for structuring ITC Infotech.

"Nothing is planned as of now", Deveshwar said, adding, "But we don''t know yet whether that (making ITC Infotech public) is the right route. But if we did want to, we could".

ITC Infotech is a $64 million company with a headcount of over 4,200 employees. The Tier-II firm competes with the likes of the global service providers like HP, IBM and Accenture and also tier-one Indian players for enterprise system integration solutions, infrastructure and testing services projects.

Some of its clients include British American Tobacco, Abbey National Bank, Finnair, DHL, PTC and Unilever. Around five per cent of the company''s revenues come from ITC.

The company has a joint venture with Client Logic, which provides technical support and voice-BPO services to clients worldwide. ITC Infotech has offices across the US, UK, Europe and Asia Pacific, and delivery footprint across 42 countries.

In February this year, the company was ranked amongst the top 10 specialty application development providers'' in the 2007 `Global Services 100'' listing. The company has now featured in this annual listing of Top 100 Global Service providers consecutively for three years.

Last May, the company ramped up its presence in the US by strengthening its sales and marketing efforts. Having notched $64 million in revenues last fiscal, the company is hoping to outpace the industry growth with a CAGR of 85 per cent.

Besides banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), the company focuses on three other verticals — its parent company ITC''s own businesses-travel and hospitality, consumer packaged goods and retail, and manufacturing. ITC Infotech also has an advanced technology division that works on incubating technologies and processes. It is now also focusing on RFID.