India’s second-largest IT services company Infosys Technologies is not interested in acquiring companies in India as the company is capable of growing organically quite fast.
The $4.6-billion company, which had earlier made an unsuccessful bid to acquire SAP consulting firm Axon that was latter acquired by HCL, would prefer acquiring companies overseas where growing organically is a little challenge, the Bangalore-headquartered company’s CEO and MD S (Kris) Gopalakrishna said.
Replying to a query by a shareholder during the company’s 28th annual general meeting (AGM) held here on Saturday on why Infosys did not consider acquiring Satyam, Gopalakrishna said the company was finding no difficulty in adding people in India, which is evident from the company’s addition of over 25,000 employees alone in fiscal 2008-09. “When we look at acquisitions, we believe that the requirement of acquisition is more outside the country than in India. We are not facing any challenge in adding employees in India,” he said.
Unlike the other Bangalore-headquartered company, Infosys had not been very active in making an inorganic pursuit in the past. The company, which is sitting on cash reserves of over $2 billion (Rs 9,695 crore as of March 31, 2009), has so far made two successful acquisitions during its nearly three-decade old existence.
Its first acquisition was of Expert Information Technologies in Australia for close to $23 million during 2003. In 2007, the company acquired Philips’ global BPO operations in a deal which will yield around $250 million revenues to Infosys over a period of time.
Meanwhile, Infosys is planning to increase its hiring in the overseas markets, including the US. In the current fiscal, the company plans to hire about 1,000 people in overseas locations, including the US, which is more than double than the last year’s figure, the company’s HR head and board member TV Mohandas Pai said.
Last year, the company had hired 375 people in the US. Pai said the salary and perks being offered to the overseas recruits this year is comparable to what was offered last year.
As of March 31, 2009, Infosys had a headcount of 104,850 employees, which includes the headcount of its subsidiaries.
