Capgemini has agreed to buy outsourcer WNS for $3.3 billion, as it looks to add AI muscle and make further inroads into the US market.
WNS employs over 64,000 staff globally. It supports clients like United Airlines, Aviva, and McCain Foods with a range of IT and business processes.
It recently acquired Snowflake partner Kipi.ai as it made its own push to improve its "data management, advanced analytics, and AI capabilities.
Capgemini, which reported $6.5 billion in revenue in Q1 25, said on 7 July that WNS would add “scale and vertical sector expertise.”
The French IT services giant's CEO Aiman Ezzat said that "Business Process Services will be the showcase for Agentic AI."
Phil Fersht, CEO, HFS Research, said that Capgemini's WNS acquisition "represents a BPO powerhouse adding significant process domain and scale to one of the major IT services firms, which would boast one of the largest BPO portfolios in the industry, estimated at more than $3.5 billion."
Capgemini invested €827 million in multiple smaller acquisitions in 2024.
Capgemini’s purchase includes an all cash offer for WNS at a 17% premium on its most recent closing price, though it is expected to be “immediately accretive” to its revenue growth and operating margin when the deal closes by the end of 2025, subject to court and shareholder approvals.
A string of AI partnerships
It comes after a string of agentic AI investments by Capgemini, including a deal with NVIDIA to develop custom AI tools in March and another agentic partnership with Google Cloud in April, focussed on customer experience.
The company has been keen to deploy AI investment to stand out from a crowded BPS market, which Ezzat claimed was “increasingly receptive to AI agents” during a recent earnings call; competitors like Accenture, are making similar moves.
Analyst Fersht added: "Likely seeing the strengthening preference for technology-centric solutions over cheap “butts-in-seats”, WNS’s potential purchase by Capgemini provides shareholders with a perfectly timed exit. In turn, Capgemini acquires WNS’s deep vertical process experience and the ability to mine WNS’s vast client base for sales opportunities focused on buyers’ strongest preference: replacing BPO solutions with Services-as-Software, one of Capgemini’s emerging strengths."
Source: thestack.technology