WNS (Holdings) Limited, the holding company for Mumbai, India-based BPO service provider, WNS Global Services became the first offshore BPO services firm to list in American stock markets when its American Deposit Shares (ADS) started trading in the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday. WNS was also the first offshore captive unit to turn itself into a third-party BPO services firm in 2002.
WNS raised $224 million in an IPO at a price of $20 per ADS, with an offering of 11.2 million ADS. Erstwhile parent British Airways exited the company while the majority owner Warburg Pincus sold a small part of its stake. The 11.2 million shares offered in the IPO represent about 28% of the company.
Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank Securities, Merrill Lynch & Co., Citigroup and UBS Investment Bank were the lead underwriters.
Speaking to Global Services after the listing, WNS CEO Neeraj Bhargava attributed the successful IPO to three factors — the industry-focused BPO business that the company has built in from day one; the rapid scaling up and diversification; and the strong management team that the company has been able to built in all the three continents that it operates in.
At the offer price of $20 per ADS, the company’s valuation stands at a little over $800 million, or close to four times its 2006 revenue. The ADS was trading at $22.40 or close to 12% higher than the offer price at 12.03 P.M.
Started in 1996 as a captive offshore delivery unit of British Airways, WNS Global Services became a third-party supplier of BPO services when in May 2002, Warburg Pincus acquired a controlling stake in the company. In 2006, it is the second largest offshore BPO firm, headquartered out of India, next only to erstwhile GE subsidiary, Genpact. WNS draws most of its fiscal 2006 (April 2005–March 2006) revenues of $202.6 million from the two segments of travel and financial services, including insurance. These two segments account for 86.5% of its revenues. All other verticals, categorized as “emerging business” by the company account for the rest.
As of Mar. 31, ‘06, WNS had 10,433 employees, and over 125 clients, including Air Canada, AVIVA, British Airways, First Magnus Financial Corporation, GSK Pharma, IndyMac Bank, Marsh, SITA, Tesco, Travelocity and Virgin Atlantic Airways. The biggest clients of the company in fiscal 2006 were Aviva and Travelocity. WNS runs Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) centers for Aviva.
WNS has delivery centers in Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and Gurgaon in India; Colombo in Sri Lanka; and Ipswich and Brodstairs in the U.K.
WNS IPO is expected to set a benchmark for offshore BPO companies looking to list. A few other India-based BPO firms like Exl Services and Techbooks are planning to list in the U.S.A.
