Girish Paranjpe, president of Wipro’s Financial Services business told ComputerWire: NerveWire makes 90% of its revenue, or $20m in the financial services sector, and between 5% and 10% from high-tech clients.

Wipro will gain an additional workforce of 90 consultants, and a list of 40 new clients primarily in the US financial services sector, where it counts BD Direct Capital, Comerica, OnMark, Federated investors, ABN Amro, Principal Financial, National City Corp, as well as EquiLend, Tivoli, 3M, DuPont, HP, HoneyWell and Cisco. The company claims to be currently working on 20 engagements. The majority of projects NerveWire performs are in the areas of planning, design and high-end architecture and systems integration, said Paranjpe, but they don’t have application design and development services.

Chairman and founder Azim Premji told ComputerWire last May: We have been looking to make an acquisition of a US IT consulting company of around $100m in revenue. We are looking for a strong brand name, and which can aggregate our number of customers. It could take one week, a month, three months or even longer. However, the company has decided against making one large purchase, settling instead for smaller more strategic acquisitions that can expand its skills across specific vertical sectors.

Last November, it made its first acquisition in the US market, snapping up the global energy practice of US-based American Management Systems Inc for $26m in cash, which valued its 90 consultants at $288,888 per head. The AMS business has 90 employees in the US and Europe who are focused on providing consulting and applications management services to more than 50 clients including investor-owned utilities, public power utilities, and regional transmission companies. It said the operation will fit well with Wipro’s focus on billing and settlement systems in energy markets.

During full-year 2002, NerveWire made revenue of about $22.2m but made an operating loss. We will take steps on the cost base, but is difficult to say if the company is going to be accretive to Wipro’s earnings in 2003, said Paranjpe.

Source: Computerwire