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By Milana Vinn and Amy-Jo Crowley
NEW YORK (Reuters) -WNS Holdings, a technology outsourcing services firm with a market value of $2.8 billion, is exploring a sale after attracting acquisition interest from potential suitors including Capgemini, according to people familiar with the matter.
WNS, which traces its roots to India, is working with its investment bankers at JPMorgan Chase to evaluate its talks with interested parties, which include French technology group Capgemini and other rival information technology services firms, the sources said, requesting anonymity as the discussions are confidential.
If the talks are successful, a deal could be signed in the coming weeks, the sources said, cautioning that the deliberations are fluid and WNS could choose not to proceed with a transaction. WNS shares jumped more than 14% on the news to touch a 52-week high on Tuesday, before paring some gains.
WNS, Capgemini, and JPMorgan declined to comment.
WNS, which is led by IT services industry veteran Keshav Murugesh, was launched in 1996 by British Airways in Mumbai as a subsidiary to manage the back-office technology operations of the airline. WNS was carved out as an independent company in 2002 after private equity firm Warburg Pincus took a majority stake in the business.
It provides services including business process outsourcing and data analytics, and its customers include large organizations such as Coca-Cola, T-Mobile, and United Airlines.
WNS primarily competes against larger software exporters such as Cognizant and Genpact, which employ thousands of engineers in low-cost locations like India for software code writing and application maintenance. WNS recently acquired Houston-based Kipi.ai, an analytics and artificial intelligence services vendor, as it looks to tap into the boom in demand for AI services.
For the quarter ended Dec. 31, WNS reported revenue of $333 million, up from $326.2 million a year earlier, while its profit rose to $48.6 million from $41.5 million. The company's shares have risen nearly 30% since its latest quarterly results came in line with market expectations, following six consecutive quarters of disappointing results.
(Reporting by Milana Vinn in New York and Amy-Jo Crowley in London; Additional reporting by Mathieu Rosemain in Paris; Editing by Anirban Sen and Chizu Nomiyama)
