Global consulting firm Capco has been acquired by Wipro in a $1.5 billion deal, adding over 5,000 business and technology consultants to its financial services practice.
While the deal represents a relatively small bolt-on considering Wipro’s global size of over 180,000 employees, from a consulting perspective the deal is a landmark move for the India-headquartered company. Founded in 1945, Wipro is one of the globe’s largest IT services companies specialised in information technology and outsourcing of IT business processes and solutions.
The addition of Capco – one of the leading consulting firms to banks, insurers and other players in the financial services landscape – significantly bolsters its consulting footprint. Thierry Delaporte, the CEO and Managing Director of Wipro said, “We are very excited to welcome Capco’s leadership team, employees, and marquee clients.”
Established in 1998 in Belgium, Capco today works for a portfolio of over 100 global institutions in the banking, payments, capital markets, wealth & asset management and insurance sectors – at the intersection of consulting and technology. The London-headquartered firm has offices in 30+ countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific.
Capco is most known for its expertise in management consulting, risk and regulatory, digital transformation and systems integration services. Combining this with Wipro’s capabilities in digital transformation, cloud, cybersecurity, IT and operations will according to the Frenchman Delaporte create one of the largest “end-to-end global consulting, technology and transformation service providers to the financial services industry globally.”
Lance Levy, CEO of Capco, added: “Together, we will offer bespoke transformational end-to-end solutions. We look forward to leveraging the complementary capabilities and similar cultures of both companies to drive industry change and offer exciting opportunities for both our clients, and our people.”
The deal comes around four years after Capco broke free from FIS to return to independence, in deal that back then was described as beneficial to the firm’s autonomous positioning and innovation agility. In the intervening years, Capco grew by some 2,000 employees, in part on the back of four acquisitions.
In a filing to the stock exchange in India, Wipro said that it expects the deal to close by the end of June.
In 2020, Wipro acquired a number of companies, including Belgian Salesforce partner 4C, digital services firm IVIA in Brazil and US-based Rational Interaction.
Sourced from Consultancy.uk