India's top IT companies seem to be holding their breath—will the fate of Citigroup have a bearing on their top line too? That seems to be the question prevalent in the IT sector.
Citi is the largest client for the largest Indian IT company TCS. It is also one of Wipro's top clients and other companies like Satyam, Infosys and Polaris. Oracle financial services have a sizeable chunk of their revenues coming from Citi, as well. IT companies keep their fingers crossed. TCS, in a statement to NDTV, said, "Our agreement with Citigroup adequately addresses our interests in case of a sale or merger of the bank."
Meanwhile, the others said they couldn’t comment on specific clients. But analysts believe that while Citi's bailout is good news for Indian IT companies for now, it could open contracts for renegotiation at lower prices. Anand Tandon, Director Equities at Brics Securities, said, “Contracts are generally watertight but under abnormal circumstances everything is possible. It would be foolish for IT companies to walk out rather than settling down for less."
However, Indian IT companies are overweight on banking and finance sector as clients and clearly every development in the space, especially in the US, will determine their survival—something they have no choice but to live with.