Belgian banking firm, KBC Group, is in talks to sell its India based offshore IT arm, that is under Valuesource Technologies, and TCS and HCL have been identified as potential buyers by ET.

The unit, located in Chennai, could be sold for around $25 Mn with a revenue commitment of 5-7 years from KBC.

It has 300 employees and operates in the field of application development and maintenance work along with BPO activities like credit processing.

As a part of its turnaround exercise post the bailout that it received in 2008-09, the group plans to focus on core activities and cut out the non-core sectors and markets.

Valuesource was born in Belgium and India in 2000 as an ICT services company and became the wholly-owned subsidiary of the KBC Group in 2004, accounted as its offshore development centre in Chennai.

KBC Bank is a Belgian universal multi-channel bank, focusing on private clients and SME firms. It is fathered by the KBC Group, the second largest bancassurer in Belgium and the 18th largest bank in Europe (by market cap), employing over half a lakh people worldwide and serving 11 Mn customers over the globe.

In 2010, Union Bank of India and KBC Asset Management formed a new AMC – Union KBC Asset Management with a joint investment of R300 Cr.

Similar type of deals in the past includes Infosys BPO's acquisition of offshore operations of Royal Philips Electronics and Cognizant bought the India captive of UBS, the Swiss investment bank.

While both the IT major are scouting for buys in the West, Europe is in the focal region as growth in U.S is stagnating and the European debt crisis has thrown in some good opportunistic buys.

Two months back Infosys acquired the Swiss consulting firm, Lodestone for around $350 Mn.

Some others in the space are also having their eyes set in the West. These include Mahindra Satyam and Wipro which was looking to invest $1 Bn in overseas acquisitions over the next 18 months.

Earlier in September, NIIT Technologies signed an agreement to acquire Sabre Holdings' Philippines Development Centre to enhance its delivery capabilities after it bought out European and Madrid based Proyecta Sistemas de Informacion S.A.

Previous Article

KION Group Fully Acquires Voltas Material Handling

Next Article

Vedanta Issues Bonds To Retire Debt

All Comments

Readers' Recommendations

Post a Comment

Display Name		E-mail
Comment
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.