S&P deems Infosys, Wipro fit for Buffett portfolio

The world's greatest investor Warren Buffett may have shied away from putting his money in Indian companies so far, but those fulfilling his investment criteria include at least three companies based here - viz. Infosys, Wipro and Satyam Computer.

Standard and Poor's, one of the world's biggest investment services providers that compiles a list of stocks meeting the legendary investor's appetite twice a year, has named the three of the biggest names in Indian IT space in the latest model portfolio.

The American Depository Receipts of the three Indian IT giants have been named alongside global giants Microsoft, Oracle, Ericsson, Cisco Systems, Diageo, China Mobile and SAP.Besides, the list also includes 3M Company, Altria, British American Tobacco, McGraw-Hill Company and Qualcomm.

Standard & Poor's has been updating its S&P Promising Growth Portfoio twice a year - in February and August - since 1995 and it includes stocks reflecting the criteria that Buffett has emphasised in the past, although "these are not necessarily stocks that Buffett has bought or ever personally plans to buy."

The latest list consists of 55 stocks across sectors like healthcare, consumer products and technology and marks a growing number of European and Asian names, S&P said.

In the previous list published in February, there were a total of 56 stocks and included Infosys and Satyam Computers.

Wipro has become the third Indian company to make it to the portfolio in its latest edition. However, the previous list included Cognizant Technology based in US, but has significant exposure India with a majority of its labour force and operations being in the country.