Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest outsourcing company, plans to list the company on the London Stock Exchange, its chief executive officer Subramanian Ramadorai has indicated.
Stating that London is a very important market, Ramadorai told The Telegraph: "They (LSE) keep talking to us to try and persuade us to go to the LSE. They say things like 'Sarbanes Oxley is a nightmare'. Everybody does their own sales pitch."
Sarbanes Oxley is a financial and accounting disclosure norm mandated by US Securities and Exchange Commission for companies who would list on American exchanges. It is also mandatory to follow it for existing listed companies.
TCS, which had a market capitalization of £6 billion when it listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange in April, is known to be seeking secondary listing. According to sources, TCS is also talking to the New York Stock Exchange and Deutsche Borse, but it is keen on London because "its culture fit TCS."
TCS has been at the forefront of moves to persuade more British companies to outsource their work to India. Among its clients are BT and British Airways, and TCS is also part of the consortium that is building the new NHS computer system.
Ramadorai said the Memorandum of Understanding signed between India and the United Kingdom last month made the UK a more attractive proposition for Indian companies. The memorandum increases the number of flights between the two countries from an existing 40 per week to 130.
"We are very comfortable doing business in the UK as a foreign company," Ramadorai said adding he was often approached by the Welsh development body over the possibility of sitting more work in the UK. The company already has eight offices in Britain, with its biggest site being in Guildford.
Ramadorai said the company has to be "sensitive" about a possible backlash over jobs going to India, but added that viewing the Indian outsourcing phenomenon as "taking away jobs" was a "very wrong perspective".
"If you see some of the research and development capabilities in India, you see why some of these companies are doing what they are doing," he said.
TCS, which is barred from making a secondary listing until 15 months after its original flotation last August, still has a few months to make up its mind over where to list.
The TCS flotation was the biggest in Indian history and the buzz it created in the country has been compared with that surrounding the Google share sale in the US, the report said.
Part of the Tata empire, large numbers of TCS shares are still held by the Tata family and its chairman is Ratan Tata.
