IT-ITeS industry looks to mergers and acquisitions
14 Apr 2011
With growth back on track, the $71-billion IT-ITeS industry is now looking to mergers and acquisitions (M&A), presence across different geographies and introduction of newer service lines.
The past three months have seen a number of big-ticket acquisitions – Genpact buying Headstrong and Igate Patni and the deals ranged between $500 million and $1billion.
Low-profile acquisitions deals have also been struck including that of Wipro-SAIC, Capgemini's acquisition of to French companies and HOV Services clubbing with Sourcecorp.
On 6 April, the largest BPO in the country, Genpact, acquired US consulting and IT services firm Headstrong in a $550 million deal, which was the biggest acquisition in the BPO space so far. With the deal Genpact gets a presence in the IT services business, along with a bigger presence in the US.
According to Pramod Bhasin, CEO and president of the company, the company wanted to have its centre of gravity closer to customers and clients in the US and UK. Headstrong presently has 60 per cent of its employees onshore, which would help it build the onshore capability further.
Headstrong CEO and president Sandeep Sahai said the company serviced a lot of clients in the capital market, but it had never been enough. He added that the company wanted to have delivery centres across the globe and build key leaders in analytics, KPO and re-engineering. He said the company would have a global reach in the US and Asia as well for end-to-end services in IT and BPM integrated.