KPIT returns to the stock market
Last week, KPIT Technologies, returned to India’s BSE and NSE. The company now has a market cap of approximately USD 410m with its share was introduced at a price of INR 99 and traded in the past few days between INR 103 and INR 115. KPIT has succeeded in its IPO and is now an automotive ER&D service pure-play having sold its IT services business to Birlasoft.
It is striking to see how India has both a dual approach to ER&D services, with three major listed ERD service pure-plays and with its five largest IT service vendors that also are significant in ER&D services
The US has a different industry structure with Accenture on one side (and now DXC with Luxoft), and staffing vendors, government service specialists, and also, to a lower extent, significant building and infrastructure firms.
Germany and France mostly have ER&D service pure-plays, with Capgemini still to make acquisitions in this space to complement its Digital Manufacturing initiative.
We have expressed several times our point of view: we think Indian offshore vendors, whether pure-plays or IT services vendors, will become major players in this industry, along with Accenture. Of all onshore vendors, only Altran had made the transition to offshore. We think other onshore vendors should follow its example. In the meantime, we’d love to learn more about KPIT.