ICICI Bank which has a 26.8% stake in BPO firm, Firstsource Solutions is looking to divest its stake as it feels it derives little synergy from the company.

Other major investors in Firstsource includes Temasek (which also has over 7% stake in ICICI), Metavante (US based banking solution firm) and Sequoia Capital/

As per Economic Times report, BPO firm WNS Holdings (owned by Warburg Pincus) may either merge or acquire Firstsource Solutions by buying out stakes held by ICICI Bank and other PE investors.

»

After much negotiations and rumours, it has been unofficialy confirmed that India’s top BPO, Genpact has bought Citigroup Global Services beating its closest rival Firstsource Solutions, marking it the largest BPO deal in terms of transaction value.

The deal has been concluded for $630 million for a 90% stake much less than the earlier anticipated value of around $900 million. Though right through the round of negotations, Genpact always remained the favourite but things changed when Firstsource’s bid turned out to be $100 million more than of Genpact.

»

India’s top BPO company, Genpact (formerly GE Capital International Services) is expected to pick up 80% stake in Citibank’s BPO arm, Citigroup Global Services for around $750-800 million, valuing the BPO at a billion dollars.

Previosuly some PE investors were believed to be in the race for CGS. Genpact is coming out with an IPO is USA and this acquisition would give it better valuation as it will give more exposure to the banking and financial verticals.

60% of India’s $8 billion BPO industry revenue comes from the financial space but inspite of the high growth, Citi wants to exit its BPO as it’s a capitive unit which has high operational costs. In such scenario Citigroup would have faced difficulty in being cost competitive compare to third party outfits.
 
Earlier, a NASSCOM survey came out with a list of India’s top 15 BPO companies. Genpact, 40% owned by General Electric Co. got the top position followed by WNS Global Services and Transworks Information Services. Citigroup Global Services was ranked at the 11th spot. via

To cash in on the growing Indian economy, Marriott International, promoters of JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton plans to triple its hotel portfolio in India by 2010 by adding 15 properties and earn $150 million in revenue from Indian operations.

The company has currently 6 Marriott properties which are JW Marriott Hotel Mumbai, Goa Marriott Resort, Hyderabad Marriott Resort, Renaissance Mumbai Hotel, Lakeside Chalet Marriott Executive Apartments and Courtyard Marriott Hotel, Chennai.

Of the 15 Marriott hotels scheduled to open, three will be JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton in the luxury tier, one Marriott and Renaisssance, one Marriott executive apartments for extended stay travelers and eight Courtyard hotels. These would come up in metro cities of Mumbai, Goa, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Gurgaon, Noida, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Pune.

The company is laying more emphasis on the upper moderate segment of business travelers by opening more Courtyards than 5 star properties as there is a substantial demand for business hotels due to growing number of middle management and senior executive traveling, especially in IT and BPO friendly cities.

Indian’s biggest IT company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in a bid to become among the top 10 global IT company by 2010 is sprucing up itself with a slew of decisions.

In the current year, it will spend Rs.1400 crore in capital expenditure, of which Rs.350 crore would be spent on technology, while remaining on IT infrastructure. It is expanding its presence globally by opening software development centres in China, Latin America, Europe and Africa.

»