Wipro acquires US's Infocrossing for 600mn

Bangalore, Aug 6: In its largest ever takeover to date, IT major Wipro today announced acquisition of Nasdaq listed Infocrossing, a US-based IT infrastructure management company in an all cash deal of 600 million Dollars.

Announcing the acquisition Wipro Chief Financial Officer Suresh Senapathy told newspersons that the two companies had signed a definitive agreement for Wipro to acquire Infocrossing at 18.70 rpt 18.70 dollars per share. The deal would create one of the world leaders in end-to-end IT infrastructure solutions, he said.

Infocrossing, with five data centres spread across the United States had in its rolls 900 employees. The total number of shares of the Company was 32 million, Mr Senapaty said.

He said Infocrossing would be merged with Wipro's US Subsidiary, Wipro Inc.

Mr Senapathy said that the deal would be closed before the end of December. For 12 months ended March 31, 2007, Infocrossing had a revenue of 232.4 million dollars and a net income of 9.3 million dollars, he added.

Mr Senapathy said that besides the 100 per cent buy out of 32 million shares, the deal also included some debt of Infocrossing. He said that the 22 year old company was listed in 1992 and the offer was a good price considering the value it brought to Wipro. Infocrossing had assets worth 300 million US dollars. Within the next 24 to 36 months the synergy with Infocrossing should help Wipro garner a revenue of one billion dollars, Mr Lakshminarayana, Chief Financial Officer, IT business of Wipro Technologies said.

The New Jersy based Infocrossing was a provider of selective IT infrastructure, enterprise application and Business process outsourcing services delivering the computing platforms and proprietary systems that enabled companies to process data and share information within their businesses.

Mr Senapathy said Wipro's total outsourcing services, which included IT infrastructure services grew at 75 per cent in the last one year. ''Through Infocrossing we are deepening our presence in the US''. With its unique platform based solutions, Infrocrossing also brought in significant expertise in Health Plan and Payer management segments. With its proven track record of processing over 175 claims annually and providing contracted services to over 90 managed care organisations, Infocrossing would considerably enhance Wipro's BPO offerings to healthcare customers.

Infocrossing, through its five data centres offered full portfolio of infrastructure management solutions, including server management, mainframe outsourcing, network management and security services.

UNI