Sanjiv Goenka leads race for Firstsource acquisition

RPG Group patriarch Rama Prasad Goenka's younger son, Sanjiv, is set to acquire business process outsourcing company, Firstsource Solutions. The move comes a little over two years after the Goenka brothers went in for an amicable split of their business empire.

The Firstsource board is meeting on Friday on take a call on the issue and sources familiar with the developments say the junior Goenka has emerged the front runner for the deal. JPMorgan is the banker for the deal.

The deal, if it fructifies, will give the junior Goenka a foothold in the growing information technology space, where his elder brother, Harsh, already has a presence through Zensar Technologies.

Moreover, it would give a much-awaited exit to Firstsource investors ICICI Bank, Aranda Investment of Temasek Holdings and Metavante Investments, which together hold about 56.84 per cent in the company.

Goenka was not available for comments, while an email sent to Firstsource did not elicit any response.

Firstsource has 32,553 employees and 48 delivery centres across the US, Philippines, India, the UK, and Sri Lanka.

For the first quarter of FY13, it reported a profit after tax of Rs 29 crore (Rs 290 million), up almost three times from Rs 10.9 crore (Rs 109 million) year-on-year and 25.6 per cent sequentially.

Revenue was Rs 520 crore (Rs 5.2 billion) for the corresponding period of 2011-12. The company's stock, languishing till some time back, has gone up 116 per cent year-to-date to Rs 13.23 per share. The company listed in 2007 and its issue price was Rs 54-64.