Sasken plans Rs 150 cr IPO

Bangalore-based Sasken Communication Technologies plans to raise Rs 100-150 crore through an initial public offering to fund its expansion plans.

Sasken is an embedded telecom technology company offering IP software components, research and development consultancy and software services to semiconductor manufacturers, network equipment companies, and global wireless handset developers.

The company's CEO and chairman Rajiv Mody indicated that Sasken is likely to list in the second half of this year and plans on raising Rs 100-150 crore.

The investment will be deployed mostly in inorganic growth initiatives. To begin with, the company plans to increase its headcount by 1000 to 3300 by the end of the next financial year.

Sasken has four development centers "" three in Bangalore and one in Pune "" and is exploring the possibility of setting up another one in the country.

Early this year, the company had acquired Mumbai-based Blue Broadband Technologies.

Mody is optimistic about the growing domestic telecommunications market. "The mobile subscription base is growing and Indian operators are charting out plans to expand their networks. They will need equipment which is provided by the network original equipment manufacturers (OEM). Most of these OEMs are already clients of Sasken. The company will then work alongside the network OEMs like Nortel, Lucent, Motorola and provide solutions which will help support the rollout. A growth such as this cannot be ignored," he explained.

The company's IPO has been in the offing for over a year now. When asked about the delay, Mody explained that it was mostly due to the downturn in the telecommunications sector. Its only in the past year or so that the sector has started to witness an upswing. This is being reflected in the company's operations.

Sasken posted revenues of Rs 167 crore in 2003-2004, while the revenue for the for the nine month ended 2004-2005 is already Rs 167 crore. The company expects to achieve at least 30 per cent growth in this fiscal.