PricewaterhouseCoopers announced on Friday the setting up of a service delivery centre in Kolkata, which would be the first of its kind entity for the network and would be a joint venture between PwC in India, Australia, Canada, the U.K. and the U.S.
Ambarish Dasgupta PwC Executive Director said here at a pressmeet that while the new venture had started operations from July 1, with 650 professionals, the headcount would increase to 2,000 by 2012.
The centre will focus on providing selected client service and financial and accounting back-office support to firms across the PwC global network.
The joint venture would be headed by Sumanth Prakash who is at present PWC's partner in Australia.
Mr. Dasgupta said that while it was difficult to push through a huge expansion, “the good impression about the quality of the manpower here, tipped the scales in favour of locating the venture in West Bengal.” To kick-off the venture, personnel who were handling similar ventures in PwC India have begun working for the new entity.
To a question Mr. Prakash said that as of now there were no plans to set up similar centres elsewhere in India. Responding to a question, Mr Dasgupta said that while PwC which did similar type of work will collaborate with the new venture, services have been categorised for segregation.
He said that the company would be run by a five-member board from the participating countries. Mr. Dasgupta said that the hiring, mostly of financial professionals and economists, would be from the IIMs, the Institutes of Chartered Accountant and also from undergraduate colleges.
He also said that the space requirement for the new venture was about one lakh sq. ft. but for now it was taking additional space at existing locations. Issues like the equity contribution of the individual partners were not known now.
