Corporate India

Wipro faces competition in its effort to add higher-marginservices business. Larger rivals Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.and Infosys Ltd. have said they want to make acquisitions inEurope and other non-English-speaking regions in their hunt fornew markets. Global IT services spending growth may slow to 1.3percent this year, from 6.5 percent in 2011, as Europe's debtstruggles continue, researcher group Gartner Inc. said April 5.

Bangalore-based Wipro offers software-development andbusiness process outsourcing services, as then as consulting andproduct engineering. IT services accounted for 76 percent of thecompany's business in the year ended March 2012. The company,which as well has units that make hand soap along with a number ofconsumer products just as light bulbs, generated revenue of 375billion rupees in the 12 months ended March 31.

Wipro tumbled 7.2 percent, the most in nearly three years,in Mumbai trading on April 25 afterwards its forecast forinformation-research revenue lagged behind some analysts'estimates. The stock is down 1.9 percent this year, during TataConsulting has gained 4.3 percent.

Wipro is looking for specialized companies in analytics,cloud computing and mobile communications, and is focused onindustries including health care, financial services, energy andutilities, and retail, Premji said.

The company as well isn't seeking businesses that "are quitedown in the value chain," doing commoditized tasks, afterspending more than a year reorienting itself to capture higher-value work, he said. "There are companies available for $1billion and above in terms of revenue, however they're available forthe wrong reasons."

The chairman took over the reins of his father's businessafter he died of a heart attack in 1966. Azim Premji was 21years old and had three months left in his engineering programat Stanford when he returned home to helm the at that time $2 millionbusiness, which he transformed over 40 years from a vegetableoil and soap maker into a software services provider with amarket capitalization of $18 billion.

Wipro isn't the only Indian company looking for deals whileshunning the services of investment banks. Billionaire Ajay Piramal in an interview last month said he may spend $1 billionto acquire biotechnology and defense assets for his health care-to-real estate empire without the help of bankers, who he saiddon't "add much value."

The attitude underscores the challenge facing global firmslike Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and UBS AG as they try to squeezerevenues from a country where fees are a fifth of those inChina, according to New York-based researcher Freeman & Co.