Wipro, TCS in deal with Lehman Bros

BANGALORE: Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) reached a preliminary deal worth up to $70 million annually to manage computer networks for investment bank Lehman Brothers.

Sangita Singh, Vice President of Strategic Marketing at Wipro, said Lehman would split the order between Wipro and TCS. But she did not disclose the terms of the preliminary agreement, including how the revenue would be shared or how long the pair would be servicing and managing the bank's networks.

Wipro's shares rose as much as 6.3 percent on the news to an intra-day high of Rs 1,480 at the BSE in a flat market. It gave up some of the gain by early afternoon, but remained up 3.57 percent. A TCS spokesman said Lehman had selected the firm for the order but he did not give details.

Previous large deals in India's software industry include an order TCS received from General Electric Co in April, estimated to be worth $100 million over two-to-three years. Wipro won a $70 million order from British utility Lattice Group Plc last year to build a national optic-fibre network by matching hardware and software systems.

Wipro, India's No. 3 software exporter, has an army of more than 11,000 engineers who are mostly based in India. Mumbai-based TCS is India's No. 1 software exporter and is part of salt-to-software Tata group, the nation's second-largest conglomerate by sales.

© Reuters