TCS closes Citi's BPO CGSL acquisition, sees strong pipeline

Mumbai: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is reported to be in the running for two large BPO contracts after having acquired Citi's captive BPO outfit in India, Citigroup Global Services Ltd (CGSL).

TCS also announced the closure of the CGSL deal, estimated at $512 million that also includes a revenue commitment of $2.5 billion from Citi. CGSL brings to TCS 12,000 employees and $280 million in annual revenues. TCS has also got a commitment from Citi for an outsourcing contract worth $2.5 billion over the next nine and a half years.

TCS executive director and COO, N Chandrasekaran was reported as saying that the formation of an integration team as far back as October 2008 had allowed TCS to 'hit the ground running'. Including CGSL's staff, TCS BPO will now have an employee strength of around 20,000, with an estimated $ 600 million in revenue from BPO services.

TCS was reported to be in the running for two, potentially multimillion multi-year contracts, and were said to be as a result of its recently acquired capabilities in end-to-end financial processing and capability to run core-banking processes as a result of the CGSL acquisition.

Chandrasekaran was also reported as saying that though client specific problems continued, the deal pipeline for the company was good, as other deals were attaining closure even though certain clients were not growing. Speaking to CNBC – TV18, Chandrasekaran said that TCS' deal pipeline is quite good and the company has seen deals getting closed, across IT, BPO and infrastructure areas.