HCL to go for $2 Billion buyouts

By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 24 September 2008, 16:34 IST
Printer Print Email Email
Bangalore: India's fifth largest IT company, HCL is looking to enter big deals in near future. The company has revealed its plan to make a $1-2 billion buyout in the U.S. or Europe before 2011. Vineet Nayar, CEO, HCL said the firm continued to look at sub-$100 million acquisitions that would give it niche capabilities or access to markets such as continental Europe and Japan. However, he didn't comment on speculation that HCL is raising funds up to $1 billion for acquisition. "Funding was not a problem for the company. HCL Technologies has close to $600 million in cash and no debt on its books," he said. HCL had earlier sought the help of consultancy firm Bain to identify growth opportunities. It identified eight focus areas where HCL aims to be among the top three global vendors by 2011, which includes engineering services, enterprise application services, the newly-launched enterprise transformation services and infrastructure services. On the current developments in global financial services market, Nayar said, "No one can predict whether this is the beginning, middle or the end of the crisis. It's now irrelevant whether or not these are our clients. In the short term, there would be a huge concern across industries and the sentiment on spending would come under pressure." "We are seeing more deals on the table now. Companies in Europe that have maintained they would never outsource are now talking outsourcing. As the economic environment becomes difficult, these companies would look at reducing costs and outsource," he added.