Wipro acquires Singapore FMCG firm Unza for $246 million

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Unza, which recorded revenues of $169 million (approx. Rs. 683.3 crore) in the last financial year and has a portfolio of 48 brands, boasts of a headcount of 4,000 and five manufacturing plants - two in Malaysia and one each in Vietnam, China and Indonesia.

As much as 50 percent of Unza's business comes from Malaysia and the rest from markets such as Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Singapore and Nigeria.

Unza, said to be South East Asia's largest independent manufacturer and marketer of personal care products, has operations in over 40 countries. The company markets personal care brands including Eversoft, Enchanteur, Safi, Romano and Izzi besides two detergent brands including Vigor and Maxkleen.

The deal, which is expected to be closed by the end of the month, would be funded through internal accruals and the transaction is expected to be closed by this month-end. Revenues from the acquisition would start flowing in from the current quarter (July-September) itself, Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting's president, Vineet Agrawal said.

"This acquisition would double our addressable market size in terms of GDP. Unza has an excellent product range and a large portfolio of strong brands catering to Asian consumers. We see lot of similarities between the two entities such as customer centricity and empowerment," Agarwal said.

"We see a lot of synergy in terms of sourcing, as it will give us access to common suppliers, vendors and a lot of formulations and brands. We will look at the product formulations and introduce them under our brand," he said.

Wipro plans to bring some of Unza's products to India and sell them under its Santoor brand.

"Wipro was a very comfortable partner for us to go forward," Unza managing director, Gavin D. Welman said.

Unza officials said they opted for Wipro given the strong value systems at the Bangalore-headquartered, $3.5-billion soaps-to-software behemoth. Incidentally, this is Wipro's biggest acquisition across business streams, surpassing the buyout of BPO company Spectramind for $100 million. Wipro's nine buyouts in the IT space till date amount to around $360 million.

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