UBS to invest $65m in Hyd

UBS AG, the Swiss-based global financial services firm, will be investing $65 million (around Rs 260 crore) this year to expand its Hyderabad operations, which include the development of a 'business continuity centre', its second campus being built here.

The company is also planning to use the IT talent pool for captive IT applications in the existing offshore centre that is mainly engaged in knowledge and business process outsourcing here.

Disclosing this here on Wednesday, Clive Standish, chief financial officer of UBS AG, said the company will be scaling up the manpower strength to 2,500 in the next 24 months from the existing 1,100 people.

The existing India Service Centre (UBS ISC), the second part of which was inaugurated by chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy on Wednesday, has a 1,700-seating capacity, whereas its second campus, which also operates as a back-up base, will have a seating capacity of 750. It will be ready by the first half of the next year.

The company has invested $50 million in the present UBS ISC, the first part of which started functioning in June 2006. The India facility is already close to break even, according to Vipul Khanna, chief executive officer, UBS Service Centre (India) Private Limited.

Meanwhile, the proposed investment for the current financial year would cover both the physical infrastructure and the capital expenditure on manpower, Standish said.

With the facilities being built to meet the firm's requirement in the next couple of years, UBS has no plans to expand its operations to other parts of India. "As of now we are committed to Hyderabad," the company CFO said.

In a significant development, UBS is now planning to position its Hyderabad facility to cater to the in-house requirements in the area of IT applications, which has so far been sourced from IT vendors.

"Though we continue to leverage the vendors' capabilities in this respect we would develop our own captive facility here," Khanna told the media.

The UBS ISC currently focuses on research in investment banking, marketing and business analytics in the knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) space and investment banking services in the BPO space serving its global clientele besides IT and infrastructure.