TeamLease to acquire Evolve Technologies

Human Resources Company TeamLease Services Ltd agreed to acquire Evolve Technologies, a smaller Pune based staffing firm, to enter the specialized telecom staffing space.

This is the second acquisition by TeamLease since July this year. It had acquired Bengaluru-based ASAP Info Systems Pvt. Ltd for Rs67 crore in July. It had then said that the acquisition would help it expand its footprint in the core IT hiring space. The acquisition of Evolve is in line with our long-term strategy of expanding our footprint into specialized areas of staffing.

India’s telecom sector has generated a lot of attention over the last one year after Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd entered the sector. The annual revenue of the telecom sector in India is about Rs2 trillion. It is saddled with a debt of around Rs4.5 trillion. The industry also owes close to Rs3 trillion in spectrum payment charges to the government, according to industry estimates. Evolve, which posted revenue of Rs108.64 crore in financial year 2016-17, will continue to operate as a separate entity following the acquisition.

TeamLease, which has been operating since 2002, mainly offers temping services where it provides temporary workforce to its clients in bulk on a contract. This allows clients to hire without adding to their direct employee base. This employment and business model is closely associated with sectors like manufacturing, banking, BPO and retail, among others. Temping also involves hiring senior level managers on a short-term basis.

Bharti Airtel Buys Augere

Bharti Airtel has agreed to acquire Augere Wireless Broadband India, as the nation’s top telecom carrier looks to consolidate its 4G footprint ahead of the launch of similar high speed broadband services by rivals such as Vodafone India, Idea Cellular and Reliance Jio Infocomm.

Upon acquisition Augere will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Airtel. Augere had won a block of 20 MHz of 4G spectrum in the Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh circle for Rs 122.46 crore in 2010 auctions. The company owned by France Telecom and a clutch of private equity funds such as Harbinger Capital and New Silk Route initially announced plans of rolling out 4G services in late 2011.

The latest move will allow Airtel to expand its 4G high speed broadband footprint ahead of the 4G launch by Reliance Jio and Vodafone, scheduled for December. Idea launch is slated for early next year. Airtel had bought airwaves in the 2300 MHz band in Kolkata, Maharashtra, Punjab and Karnataka in the 2010 spectrum auctions and later acquired chip-maker Qualcomm airwaves in another four circles of Delhi, Mumbai, Kerala and Haryana.

Both 4G and 3G spectrum are critical for the next phase of growth of mobile phone operators as mobile data increasingly replaces voices as the main growth driver for them. Airtel posted almost 80% growths in its mobile data revenue in the first fiscal quarter through June. In March, Airtel entered into a partnership with China Mobile, the world’s largest telecom operator.