(Image source from: Femina)
An Indian-American couple Bharat Desai and Neerja Sethi have sold their Information Technology services company Syntel to French IT major Atos for $3.4 billion.
The two together held a 57 percent stake in the company, which means they receive nearly $2 billion from the deal.
Desai, hailing from Kenya grew up in Mombasa and in Ahmedabad and then did electrical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay.
He worked concisely in Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) before moving to the University of Michigan for Master of Business Administration (MBA). That is where he met Sethi and, in 1980, while they were still studying, the two decided to start a company (they married later) that was in some ways modeled along the lines of TCS.
Syntel, which in financial 2017 had $923 million in revenue, was commenced with $2,000. The firm earned $30,000 in its introductory year and acquired encouragement in 1982 when it signed on General Motors as a client.
At an entrepreneur event in 2013 in Delhi, Desai is reported to have said, "I always wanted to run a business of my own. I was a horrible employee and could not live by anybody else's rule. So, the best way was to start my own company. My wife is the toughest board member."
Desai had further said that he knew the IT services industry would grow significantly and with the right moves, "we could outpace overall growth".
The establishment was stratified 70th in Business Week's "Hot Growth Companies" and was Number 2 in Forbes "200 Best Small Companies in America"
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The company's share price slip in the dot com bust, but then it steadily rose again, fluctuating in line with industry trends. In late 2016 there was a sharp drop that took the couple off the billionaire's ranks. Yet since March earlier this year, its stock has shot up, which partially now explains the price now paid by Atos.
Genpact, Tech Mahindra and The New York Stock Exchange-listed Epam - have organically are the three IT companies hit the $1-billion gross mark after Cognizant in 2006 touched the milestone.
By Sowmya Sangam
