Cognizant Buys UBS ISC

Cognizant (CTSH) recently announced a definitive agreement to acquire UBS India Service Centre Private Limited for about $75 million. Based in India, UBS ISC is a captive service provider to UBS AG (UBS) and currently employs 2,000 associates.

Headquartered in Zurich and Basel, Switzerland, UBS AG is a global firm providing services to private, corporate and institutional clients. New Jersey-based Cognizant is a leading provider of consulting, technology and business process outsourcing (BPO) services.

The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2009. As part of the transaction, UBS and Cognizant have entered into a multi-year service agreement under which Cognizant will provide a range of business process outsourcing (BPO), knowledge process outsourcing (KPO), IT, and remote infrastructure management services to UBS divisions around the globe. Cognizant aims to help these divisions to reduce time-to-market, expand service delivery, and improve productivity, operational efficiency and quality.

UBS is a leader in wealth management, investment banking, asset management, research and remote IT infrastructure management. Management at Cognizant believes that this acquisition will help Cognizant strengthen its business and knowledge process capabilities, deepen its financial services domain knowledge, and improve its capabilities to provide integrated services across consulting, technology, and outsourcing.

Cognizant continues to outperform its peers and remains a leader in IT services. Compared to its competitors Tata Consultancy Services Ltd and Infosys Technologies Ltd (INFY), CTSH is setting a more robust tone going forward.

The company earlier acquired Pepperweed Advisors, the IT consulting services division of Pepperweed Consulting in a move to strengthen its IT Infrastructure Services (IT IS) practice in two areas -- IT Service Management (ITSM) and IT Asset Management (ITAM). Management had earlier stated that the demand environment remains positive and the increase in demand for the company's services continued into the third quarter as well after a strong second quarter.

The company remains well diversified among verticals such as financial services, health care and life sciences, retail, manufacturing and logistics. This diversification has helped the company maintain its top line even in this tough economic climate.

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