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...and Mahindra-British Telecom to follow suit
Our eFe Bureau
Pune : Mahindra-British telecom (mbt) is setting up a new software development centre at Bangalore. Meanwhile, the company is awaiting the SEBI card for hitting the market with its IPO, Mr Kiran Deshpande, MD and CEO of MBT said. Mr Deshpande denied there was any delay in going to the market. "The offer document has been filed but it ran into the holiday season," he said. MBT has just introduced ESOPs for its employees, who will have a five per cent share of the company, he said.MBT is the joint venture between Mahindra and Mahindra and British Telecom Plc (57:43), and is seeking to dilute five per cent of the promoters' share and have a fresh issue for another five per cent of the stock. The trouble at Brtish Telecom will in no way affect the IPO or business of MBT, Mr Deshpande said. "We are their largest software service supplier and responsible for mission critical application and businesses. BT has assured business to the tune of 105 million pounds for three years till year 2003," he added. "But as BT revenues will not be growing as strongly we plan to reduce the revenue share from BT, which is around 75 per cent at present," Mr Deshpande said. The customer base has expanded to include a range of companies such as MCI Worldcom, AT&T, Alltell Information System, IBM, Reserve Bank of India and the Government of Mahrashtra. MBT has recently bagged contracts from the defence ministry for offering modelling and simulation. On the development centre in Bangalore, Deshpande said thecompany was doing a lot of recruitment from Bangalore and it was logical to have a presence there. Bangalore will be the fourth development centre for MBT after Mumbai, Pune and London. The company will be investing around Rs 8.5 crore in setting up the Bangalore centre, which will focus on the telecom area and house 200 software professionals. Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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