IT major Wipro Limited has decided to sell its hosted data centre services business to Ensono, a leading hybrid IT services provider.
The deal size is $ 405 million.
Wipro has already signed a definitive sale agreement with Ensono.
Ensono is a portfolio company of Charlesbank Capital Partners and M/C Partners. Ensono provides hybrid IT services - from cloud to mainframe - that enable clients to digitally transform their business. Through the acquisition, Ensono is doubling in size, diversifying its client portfolio, and increasing its annualized revenue to be in excess of $550 million.
``Wipro will unlock value by transitioning eight data centres, and over 900 employees of its hosted data centre services business to Ensono,'' said the company in a filing with BSE.
The acquisition will significantly expand Ensono’s geographic footprint and global service capabilities. Also, this will help its clients harness the power of hybrid IT to transform their businesses on a global scale.
Wipro and Ensono have also signed a long-term partnership agreement to jointly address the hybrid IT requirements of Wipro’s new and existing enterprise customers, said a release.
As part of the agreement, Wipro will make a strategic investment of $ 55 million in Ensono’s combined entity.
Wipro has been providing comprehensive IT management solutions for large and mid-size enterprises for over 25 years, and operates world-class data centres globally. The company has expertise across multiple computing environments and platforms, including mainframes, iSeries, Unix, Windows and Linux servers, and offers an array of delivery models ranging from customized solutions delivered in Wipro’s data centres to remote management and cloud computing.
Hosted data centre services business is one of the three businesses that became a part of Wipro when it acquired Infocrossing Inc in 2007. The other two businesses - Medicare & Medicaid services in the health insurance space and ERP implementation services - have been integrated with other Wipro businesses, and are not part of this divestment.
“As we embrace our strategy of focusing on newer digital areas of spend, our strategic investment and partnership with Ensono will enable us to remain committed to meeting the hosted data centre services requirements of our customers. This partnership will enhance the global data centre footprint and expand the available talent pool which will give us economies of scale and allow us to offer end-to-end capabilities in the infrastructure space, better than ever before,” said Kiran Desai, Senior Vice-President, Global Infrastructure Services, Wipro Limited.
The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. And, it is expected to close in the quarter ending June 2018.
