Wipro buys some Yardley operations for 45.5 million dollars

Bangalore, Nov 6 : Wipro Ltd has acquired some businesses of Yardley for about 45.5 million dollars from British personal care company Lornamead to boost its consumer care unit's presence in the overseas markets.

Wipro, which gets about three quarters of its revenue from IT services, said it had bought Yardley business in Asia, the Middle East, Australasia and some African markets.

"These are developing countries and we wanted to have a stronger presence in these places and that's why we looked at this acquisition. It is close to about 1 billion rupees of the revenue that we acquired, close to about 21 million dollars on a run rate basis," said Vineet Agrawal, president, Consumer Care and Lighting Unit, Wipro.

The transaction is expected to be completed by mid-December and revenue from the acquisition would start flowing from the March quarter, he said, adding the acquired business currently has revenue of 24 million dollars a year.

The acquisition would be accretive to the Wipro consumer care unit's profit margins, Agrawal said, without giving details. The unit contributes about 9 percent of Bangalore-based Wipro's total revenue.

"In terms of revenues, it is 70 per cent coming from Middle East, 20 per cent from India and rest from rest of the geographies," said Agrawal.

New York-listed Wipro majority owned by billionaire Chairman Azim Premji, had acquired Singapore's Unza Holdings, which makes personal care products, for about 246 million dollars in 2007 to expand its consumer care product portfolio.

Analysts said the Yardley business purchase would not have a significant impact on Wipro's financials in the near term.

--ANI