HDFC to buy TCS' Intelenet stakes for $35 m

Shubhendu Parth & Rahul Gupta

NEW DELHI: The Board of Directors of Housing Development Finance Corporation Ltd (HDFC) has decided to buy out TCS' 50 percent stakes in Intelenet Global Services for Rs 161 crore.

With this acquisition, Intelenet, the Mumbai-based Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) outfit, originally promoted by HDFC and TCS, would become a 100 percent subsidiary of the corporation.

According to sources, TCS decided to exit the venture because it intends to concentrate on its core business, as the company is also going for an Initial Public Offer (IPO). Earlier reports published in some of the media suggest that TCS wanted to buy HDFC's stake in the venture, but the tables were believed to have turned as the home-loan major offered a better price.

A financial daily had reported earlier that Barclays Bank was in talks to buy Intelenet Global Services and was even conducting due diligence of the BPO firm. Incidentally, the UK-based bank is one of the largest clients of Intelenet, which is currently providing telephone helpdesk services for its online banking service.

Intelenet, set up in 2000, offers a range of IT-enabled services which include contact centers, transaction processing, accounting services and technical support in various verticals like banking, financial and insurance. The joint venture company has six delivery centers with two facilities in Mumbai, Chennai, US, Canada and UK and employs 4,000 personnel.

The firm has around 20 clients, which include reputed companies from the US and the UK including financial clients like JP Morgan and Standard Life Health Care.

According to Dataquest estimates the company's posted revenues of Rs 39 crore for FY 2003-04, up 99% from fiscal 2002-03 revenues of Rs 19 crore.

CyberMedia News