‘Wipro Looks at M&As Worth $1 b’

Wipro is seeking to make more than $1 billion in acquisitions over the next 18 months, adding intellectual property and software to help boost profit, chairman Azim Premji said. India's third-largest computer-services provider is targeting deals between $50 million and $300 million, though "it's not a hard cap," Premji said in a May 18 interview in New York. The company relies mostly on an internal mergers and acquisitions team led by Rishad Premji, the chairman's son, to hunt for candidates, rather than using investment banks. 

"We are trying to create deals, rather than just react to deals which are lying with investment bankers, because we find ur win rates are much higher," said Premji, 66. "We want to supplement our growth rates there and go up the value chain." 

Wipro faces competition in its effort to add higher-margin services business. Larger rivals Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys have said they want to make acquisitions in Europe and other non-English-speaking regions in their hunt for new markets. 

Global IT services spending growth0 may slow to 1.3% this year, from 6.5% in 2011, as Europe's debt struggles continue, research group Gartner said April 5. Bangalore-based Wipro offers software-development and business process outsourcing services, as well as consulting and product engineering.— Bloomberg