Wipro bags $1-bn deal from Olam

IT MAJOR WIPRO on Monday said it has won an eight-year transformation contract with Singapore-based food and agribusiness Olam Group, valued at over $1 billion, with a committed spend of $800 million.

- POULOMI CHATTERJEE

Aside from delivering end-to-end transformation services for Olam’s ‘farm-to-fork’ operations, Wipro will also acquire Olam’s IT arm Mindsprint for $375 million in all-cash deal.

This marks Wipro’s second sizable acquisition in the past 9 months, following the purchase of HARMAN’s DTS unit for $375 million. The deal, notably one of Wipro's biggest strategic transformation contracts, comes at a time when Indian IT firms are staving off disruptions to their business models triggered by AI tools even as the West Asia war stretches on.

WIPRO'S SHARES ROSE 3.1% after the announcement, as did other IT stocks including Infosys (+1.5%), TCS (+1.2%), HCLTech (+1.4%), all of which gained.

Sources at Wipro explained that domain expertise is critical because all players will eventually have the same AI technology. “It is hard to deploy AI without understanding the business model of a specific sector. Mindsprint brings us an understanding of one of the fastest-growing sectors,’ they said. They added the deal would boost Wipro’s incremental revenue over 8 years while capping the downside and providing long-term stickiness. “Mindsprint will also help us win more deals in the long-term from the agribusiness sector,’ they said.