CAN COFORGE TAKE ON BIGGER BOYS FOR DEALS?

The IT company, a stock market darling, will have to take on Wipro, Tech M and others to maintain its rapid growth

- Shelley Singh

In 2017, when Sudhir Singh joined NIIT Technologies, the first thing he did as CEO was to change the entire top leadership-lock, stock and barrel.

His logic for replacing all his 14 direct reports was simple; "The only thing the old team proved was that they can't grow," he told Mint. Barring one departure, the new leadership team is still in place at the company, now rebranded Coforge, and it has overseen a transformation that is the stuff of business podcasts.

Despite global economic uncertainties and pandemic-driven headwinds, Coforge's revenues tripled, its market cap went up 16.5x, and it made at least three acquisitions. During this time it changed ownership twice-the NIIT promoters exited in 2019, and in 2023, Baring Private Equity Asia, which had picked up NIIT's stake, also exited. That last exit turned Coforge into a board-run company, a unique model in the IT services landscape.

For the second quarter this fiscal year (FY25), the IT services company reported a 17% increase in net profit over the yearago period to ₹212 crore. Revenue rose by about a third over the same period to ₹3,062 crore. On current form, Coforge is on track to close this fiscal year at around $1.4 billion or 11,000 crore.

In October, it also completed the integration with Cigniti Technologies, which it had acquired in May. Cigniti, an engineering services and software testing company, is the company's fourth acquisition in the last seven years. The others include SLK Global, abusiness process management company; Whishworks, to enhance its Salesforce business and Rule Tek, a US-based digital integration firm The company is eyeing $2 billion in revenue by FY27 and hopes to keep up the momentum it has built over the years to become a market darling. The stock price has zoomed around 400% in the last five years. In November 2019 it was trading at around 1,450 a share and on 27 November, it closed at 8,684.90.