Insurance market witnesses important BPO deals

Indian outsourcers WNS and HCL Technologies have each acquired separate strategic assets, including the offshore unit of insurance giant Aviva and the financial services division of UK outsourcer Liberata. These deals have highlighted three important trends within the industry: the move away from captives, the increasing focus on the insurance vertical and the maturity of the Indian BPO market.

India-based outsourcer WNS has announced the GBP115 million ($228 million) purchase of Aviva Global Services (AGS), the captive offshore unit of insurance giant Aviva. As part of the acquisition, WNS, which is majority-owned by private equity shop Warburg Pincus, will continue to provide services to Aviva: the two companies inked a 100 month agreement that will provide WNS with approximately $1 billion in service revenue. Soon after this announcement, HCL Technologies, another Indian IT services provider, revealed the acquisition of Liberata Financial Services (LFS), a division of the UK outsourcer that serves the life and pension industry. The deal price was not disclosed, although the fixed assets have reportedly been valued at $2 million.

Indian IT sector set to be 2nd largest

Indian IT industry may be passing through a rough patch because of a slowdown in the US economy and high inflation rates, but this stage will pass. India will continue to drive the global IT market for the next few years. In fact, it will emerge as the second most important IT industry in the world after the US in terms of revenue and employment," says a study. "India will create the second largest IT services labour pool after the US within the next seven to eight years. That''s not all, domestic IT industry''s contribution to our GDP is likely to rise from 0.8% in 2006-07 to 2.65% by 2015-16."

This has been forecasted by a yet to be released white paper ''India''s Role in the Globalization of the IT Industry'' by Evalueserve, a KPO. It says, "by 2015-2016, the number of professionals working in the IT industry will grow ten-fold (from 2001-2002) and the total revenue will grow 22 times. This means, the IT industry is likely to employ 3,750,000 professionals and record $193.1 billion in revenue by 2015-16.

While in the last decade, IT services exports have been growing at 32% annually. Evalueserve estimates this growth rate will taper off and become around 20% in the next seven to eight years. The reason: rising wages, lack of high quality talent, and IT jobs relocating to other low-cost destinations in Eastern Europe and Latin America. The paper thus concludes: First, by 2016 India will have the second highest number of IT professionals in the world after the US. In fact, US will employ between 1.25 to 1.33 times more professionals than India. Second, even in 2016, the US IT industry will generate approximately $810 billion in annual revenue, which would be almost five times the revenue of the Indian IT industry.

Max New York Life rolls out insurance-cum-savings product

Max New York Life Insurance on July 24 rolled out "Max Vijay", an insurance-cum-savings product aimed at the underserved segment of society.

Max Vijay has been designed keeping in mind the lifestyle, income patterns and needs of the rural and semi-urban population. It empowers millions of Indians to benefit from the economic boom in financial services that was hitherto denied to them. The minimum premium payable under the product has been fixed at Rs 1,000 and the policy will not lapse as long as there is sufficient value in the account. The company has tied-up with IBM to provide end-to-end technology backbone for fulfilment. Apart from this, they will facilitate the handheld terminal, which enables data transfer to the back-end through GPRS and hence facilitates on-the-spot policy receipt.

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Market pares gains

Profit booking at higher levels in early afternoon trade capped gains in key benchmark indices after a solid early spurt. Metal, banking and capital goods stocks witessed buying demand. The market breadth was strong with small and mid-cap shares staging a comeback after a sharp recent plunge. Cues from the Asian markets, which opened before the Indian market, were positive. Spice Communications was up marginally on massive volumes.

At 12:24 IST, the 30-share BSE Sensex was up 178.37 points or 1.33% at 13,632.45. At the day’s high of 13,793.39 hit in mid-morning trade, the Sensex had gained 339.29 points.

The broader based S&P CNX Nifty was up 69.35 points or 1.38% at 4002.

The BSE Mid-Cap index was up 2.31% at 5,400.36, while the BSE Small-Cap index was up 2.94% at 6,639.34. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

The market breadth was strong on BSE, with 1896 gainers outpacing 480 losers. 57 stocks remained unchanged.

Among the 30-member Sensex pack, 26 advanced while the rest declined.

India’s largest private sector firm by market capitalization and oil refiner Reliance Industries fell 1.29% at Rs 2072. It was the top loser from Sensex pack.

Tata Motors (down 1.14% to Rs 396.25), HDFC (down 1.09% to Rs 2,032), Cipla (down 0.36% to Rs 207.20) and Reliance Communications (down 0.3% to Rs 436.90) edged lower from Sensex pack.

India's second largest software exporter by sales Infosys Technologies rose 1.57% at Rs 1780.

Banking stocks rose on fresh buying. State Bank of India (up 4.3% to Rs 1,175.50), ICICI Bank (up 2.97% to Rs 617.90) and HDFC Bank (up 2.02% to Rs 1,019) edged higher.

Battered capital goods stocks staged a comeback today on bargain hunting. Siemens (up 7.59% to Rs 459.50), Suzlon Energy (up 3.51% to Rs 198.90), Bharat Heavy Electricals (up 0.13% to Rs 1,502.20) rose.

India’s largest engineering and construction firm by sales Larsen & Toubro (L&T) rose 2.65% to Rs 2,444.80 after it won a transmission line order worth Rs 446 crore.

Metal stocks rose. National Aluminium Company (up 3.31% to Rs 357.50), Steel Authority of India (up 3.21% to Rs 131.90), Hindalco Industries (up 2.68% to Rs 141.75), Tata Steel (up 1.78% to Rs 651.50) and Sterlite Industries (up 1.18% to Rs 650) edged higher.

Reliance Infrastructure (up 4.98% to Rs 812.10), Jaiprakash Associates (up 4.86% to Rs 161), Maruti Suzuki India (up 4.01% to Rs 571), Bharti Airtel (up 3.69% to Rs 743) edged higher from Sensex pack.

Spice Communication rose 0.48% to Rs 73.30 after a massive block deal of 28.45 crore shares was struck on the counter at Rs 74 per share in early trade on BSE, amounting to a sizeable 40.8% stake of the company changing hands. It was the top traded counter on BSE with turnover of Rs 2137.16 crore.

Among the small-cap counters, Silverline Technologies (up 18.39% to Rs 18.35), ITI (up 14.52% to Rs 28), Astra Microwave (up 13.15% to Rs 52.05) and Garware Offshore (up 12.39% to Rs 160.50) surged.

Deccan Aviation (up 19.35% to Rs 69.70), Panacea Biotec (up 17.22% to Rs 355), State Trading Corporation of India (up 15.52% to Rs 262.90), Spicejet (up 15.6% to Rs 28.90) and HMT (up 14.18% to Rs 54.35) edged higher from midcap pack.

ICSA India declined 0.13% to Rs 277.90 even on securing order of Rs 79.88 crore from Ajmer Vidyut Vitran Nigam for providing rural electricity infrastructure under Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Vidyutikaran Yojna of Banswara District, Rajasthan, on turnkey basis.

Tricom India rose 8.64% to Rs 115 after it fixed 22 July 2008 as the record date for 5 for 1 stock split.

Ramco Systems rose 9.66% to Rs 102.70 after it deferred board meet on 10 July 2008 to consider right issue. The revised date of the Board meeting will be communicated later.

Asian markets which opened before Indian market, edged higher. The key benchmark indices in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan were up by 0.11% to 4.19%. US stock markets were closed for the Independence Day holiday on Friday, 4 July 2008.

US light crude for August delivery traded at $143.92 a barrel and London Brent crude rose 23 cents to $144.65 a barrel. Crude oil hit a record $145.85 on 3 July 2008.

As per provisional data, foreign funds bought shares worth a net Rs 372.35 crore while domestic mutual funds sold shares worth a net Rs 97.02 crore on Friday 4 July 2008.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net buyers of Rs 120.10 crore in the futures & options segment on Friday, 4 July 2008. They were net sellers of index futures to the tune of Rs 215.54 crore and bought index options worth Rs 99.23 crore. They were net buyers of stock futures to the tune of Rs 221.21 crore and purchased stock options worth Rs 15.20 crore.