UBS, Switzerlands biggest bank by assets, has sold its Indian back-office captive to multinational services firm Cognizant Technology Solutions for around USD75 million along with a five-year outsourcing contract worth up to USD442 million. The acquisition will strengthen Cognizants BPO practice and also help it expand its relations with UBS, an existing client.
“We are among the top five companies providing technological services for the financial services sector. This acquisition helps us consolidate our position, expand our service offering and take our solutions to a wider geography. We have significant revenues coming from the US whereas the USB ISC (India Service Centre) has more than half its revenues coming from APAC and Europe regions. So, this helps in diversifying our revenue base, Cognizant vice-chairman Lakshmi Narayanan said.
A report by Deutsche Bank said the deal was reasonably priced, through which Cognizant would acquire highly skilled employees. The report further said, “It highlights Cognizants ability to expand with existing clients and captives tend to have margin leverage potential related to improved span of control opportunities.â€
Divesting non-core captive operations is a strategy adopted by banks such as Citigroup and UBS for focusing better on their core operations and also gain better outsourcing rates by bundling such transactions with a multi-year contract.
An upfront payment also helps them unlock value from non-core assets. Citibank sold its Indian back office business to TCS for around USD505 million in October last year and Citi Technology Services for around USD127 million to Wipro in December last year. Both these transactions came with assured outsourcing business of around USD3 billion together for these vendors.
While around 2,000 staff of UBS India captive unit in Hyderabad will move to Cognizant as part of this transaction, the banks captive operations in Poland has not been included in this deal, a Cognizant spokesman added.
The USD442-million outsourcing contract bundled with this deal includes work beyond back office and knowledge process outsourcing and could involve application development and IT hardware management as well.
“It remains to be seen if UBS other existing vendors Wipro and Infosys will see any negative impact on their revenues from the bank,†said an outsourcing expert familiar with the transaction. “Ideally, UBS would like to consolidate its work as part of this transaction,†he added.
Source:
http://www.offshoringtimes.com/Pages/2009/BPO_news2710.html
“We are among the top five companies providing technological services for the financial services sector. This acquisition helps us consolidate our position, expand our service offering and take our solutions to a wider geography. We have significant revenues coming from the US whereas the USB ISC (India Service Centre) has more than half its revenues coming from APAC and Europe regions. So, this helps in diversifying our revenue base, Cognizant vice-chairman Lakshmi Narayanan said.
A report by Deutsche Bank said the deal was reasonably priced, through which Cognizant would acquire highly skilled employees. The report further said, “It highlights Cognizants ability to expand with existing clients and captives tend to have margin leverage potential related to improved span of control opportunities.â€
Divesting non-core captive operations is a strategy adopted by banks such as Citigroup and UBS for focusing better on their core operations and also gain better outsourcing rates by bundling such transactions with a multi-year contract.
An upfront payment also helps them unlock value from non-core assets. Citibank sold its Indian back office business to TCS for around USD505 million in October last year and Citi Technology Services for around USD127 million to Wipro in December last year. Both these transactions came with assured outsourcing business of around USD3 billion together for these vendors.
While around 2,000 staff of UBS India captive unit in Hyderabad will move to Cognizant as part of this transaction, the banks captive operations in Poland has not been included in this deal, a Cognizant spokesman added.
The USD442-million outsourcing contract bundled with this deal includes work beyond back office and knowledge process outsourcing and could involve application development and IT hardware management as well.
“It remains to be seen if UBS other existing vendors Wipro and Infosys will see any negative impact on their revenues from the bank,†said an outsourcing expert familiar with the transaction. “Ideally, UBS would like to consolidate its work as part of this transaction,†he added.
Source:
http://www.offshoringtimes.com/Pages/2009/BPO_news2710.html