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GHCL joins ITES bandwagon
By siliconindia staff writer
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Wednesday, 24 September 2003, 19:30 IST
AHMEDABAD: The Sanjay Dalmia-controlled Gujarat Heavy Chemicals Ltd's (GHCL) major diversification into the information technology enabled services (ITeS) is expected to generate over Rs 50 crore in revenues during the current fiscal year, apart from possible acquisitions abroad.
Colwell and Salmon Communications Inc of the US, GHCL's subsidiary, reported revenues of Rs 32 crore in FY03 and this is expected to rise to Rs 50 crore in current fiscal year, according to a senior official of GHCL.
During FY03, the Rs 467 crore GHCL acquired a 69 per cent stake for around Rs 11 crore in the US company and it will acquire a further 7 per cent stake in October 2003 and another 7.33 per cent in January 2005.
GHCL's new 210-seat ITeS facility has begun operations at Noida recently to cater to the existing clients of the US subsidiary. These operations are handled by GHCL's new wholly owned subsidiary, Colwell and Salmon Communications (India) Ltd, which has registered itself as a STPI unit.
This company has also approached other customers in the USA and UK to get more business.
"We are looking at a substantial presence in the UK too and an acquisition of an ITeS company in the UK could be one of the routes. UK plans will be finalised in a couple of months time," said a senior GHCL official.
Colwell and Salmon Communications Inc of the US provides tele-marketing and market research services. It reported revenues of $ 6.8 million in FY03, a 28 per cent increase over the previous fiscal year.
The company will soon to launch business process out-sourcing services after being taken over by GHCL. This subsidiary's B2B segment revenues grew by 48 per cent to $ 4.8 million and was listed as one of the five most preferred vendors for IBM in the tele-services segment in North America.
It added new clients like EDO Corp, National Equipment Services and several new IBM business partners like Siemens Corp and Candle Corp. With the subsidiary now being able to outsource its services to the Noida facility, it expects to bag more clients in the US as it will become more cost competitive.
To reflect the company's diversifications into ITeS and textiles, the management has proposed to change the company's name to 'GHCL Ltd' from the existing 'Gujarat Heavy Chemicals Ltd' at the upcoming annual general meeting. (Source: Economic Times)