TCS Acquires Pramerica Services Unit From Prudential

(Bloomberg) -- India’s Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. agreed to acquire the employees and select assets of Pramerica Systems from insurance giant Prudential Financial Inc., helping the insurer cut costs to counter low interest rates and the coronavirus fallout.

TCS and the Newark, New Jersey-based life insurer signed the agreement for the Letterkenny, Ireland-based tech-services business Wednesday, TCS said. The Indian company will take on more than 1,500 Pramerica employees. No cash will change hands, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News earlier.

The deal deepens the Indian IT giant’s relationship with a key client and expands its foothold in Ireland and Europe, said K. Krithivasan, TCS’s president of banking, financial services and insurance. Pramerica staff will continue to provide a range of digital and technology services to Prudential.

Global banks and insurers are accelerating efforts to shed non-core assets, like tech support, as they navigate through the economic uncertainty of the Covid-19 pandemic. Just this week, Deutsche Bank agreed to sell its technology services unit, Postbank Systems AG, to TCS by the year end. The price: one euro.

The Prudential deal is similar in structure and concept. Shedding the operation is expected to help the insurer trim costs, as it aims for $750 million in savings by the end of 2023. For TCS, Pramerica will bring multi-year services contracts, strategy expertise and a development center in Ireland. Under the agreement, which awaits regulatory approval, Prudential will keep the Pramerica Ireland entity.

Tata Consultancy is Asia’s biggest exporter of software services with a market value of more than $130 billion. It has more than 450,000 employees around the world and generates $22 billion in annual revenue from selling software services and products to a range of customers including Citigroup Inc., BT Group Plc, Panasonic Corp. and Qantas Airways Ltd.Prudential Financial is re-pricing services and moving to products that are less rate-sensitive, the insurer said while announcing quarterly earnings last week. It put share buybacks on pause as the fallout of the coronavirus outbreak clouded business visibility. Chief Executive officer Charles Lowrey said at the time the company would explore potential asset sales and that deal-making would help reshape the business.

(Updates with company’s announcement from the first paragraph)

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