Ma Foi to invest Rs 12 cr on spread

Ma Foi Management Consultants Ltd plans to invest Rs 12 crore in 2005 to expand its overseas and domestic presence and deepen its technological infrastructure.

"This year we shall expand and consolidate our number one position in the HR services and consultancy by growing at the same 75 per cent that we grew at last year. We shall also structure our entire business vertically and deepen technological infrastructure to strengthen our offerings," said K Pandia Rajan, managing director, Ma Foi.

The Rs 12 crore investment will be mainly funded through internal accruals and a soft bank loan.

The investment will increase Ma Foi footprint to US, Oman, Muscat, Bahrain and Qatar. The other countries that it has been mapping for expansion include Canada, Indonesia, Phillipines and Thailand.

At present the company has five overseas subsidiaries- these include Colombo, Malaysia, Singapore, London and Dubai. With this Ma Foi will double its headcount overseas from 50 to 100. It will add on Allahabad, Aurangabad and Simla to its domestic list of 42 offices and increase its core staff strength from 450 to 700.

As regards its vendor management services, Ma foi will either manage their entire recruitment needs or provide them with a readymade technology to manage their recruitment activities.

Globally, it will broadly align itself around the energy and banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) verticals to service its contract staffing needs more optimally.

Dubai and London would be the bases for energy and BFSI respectively. Both the verticals will be headed by a separate global head.

In India, the verticals that Ma Foi is to add on consumer sales, retail and technology to its already existing verticals of BFSI, energy and infrastructure, telecom, consumer, retail, education and reserach, IT, ITES and life sciences.

The HR major is looking at more than trebling its workforce from the current 125 to 300 by December 2005 in Ma Foi Consulting Solutions, which focusses on outsourcing and consulting in Chennai.

"Our services will be integrated and holistic, having started with payroll we have started offering eight other services. We hope to become number one by increasing the 45,000 records that we are doing currently to one lakh records," added Rajan.

Dutch staffing major Vedior had picked up a 76 per cent stake in Ma Foi for Rs 27.4 crore in 2004.