Citigroup pays $126m for Indian IT services outfit

Citigroup is paying about $126m to take full control of Indian IT services company e-Serve International.

The banking giant had owned about 44 per cent of shares in the Indian company through its Citibank Overseas Investment unit. It is now increasing its stake to 100 per cent, Mumbai-based e-Serve on Monday informed the Bombay Stock Exchange, where it is listed.

The Indian company provides call centre, transaction processing and data management services and has clients in 25 countries, including the US, the UK and Australia. It has a staff of about 4,500.

The acquisition follows a similar move by IBM last week in the outsourcing sector. Big Blue agreed to take over privately held Daksh, India's third largest back-office-services company, in a deal estimated to be worth between $150m and $200m. Daksh, which has 6,000 employees, offers call centre services to 13 clients including internet retailer Amazon.com.

Numerous US-based corporations are turning to Indian companies to handle a variety of business activities such as help desks, customer service and claims processing, either through their own subsidiaries or third-party operations. They're doing so to cut costs but have drawn fire from politicians and trade unions because of job losses in the US.

The Information Technology Association of America trade group, however, has argued that so-called offshoring might actually help the US economy.

Dinesh C Sharma writes for CNET News.com. Reuters contributed to this report.