LTIMindtree bags its largest deal from US agribusiness firm ADM

LTIMindtree Ltd secured its largest deal from Archer-Daniels-Midland Co (ADM), a Chicago-based food processing and commodities trading company, three people with knowledge of the matter told Mint. This makes it the second mid-cap information technology (IT) services provider after Coforge Ltd to bag its largest contract since January.

The country’s sixth-largest IT outsourcer bagged a seven-year deal valued at $450 million, according to a LTIMindtree press release on Monday. To be sure, LTIMindtree did not disclose the name of the client in its press release. As part of the deal, LTIMindtree would handle the agribusiness company’s IT infrastructure, manage its softwares, and provide cybersecurity services.

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This implies that the IT services company would get about $64 million on an average from the client annually. That translates to at least a 1.4% full-year growth for LTIMindtree, which ended the 12 months through March 2025 with $4.49 billion in revenue.

Queries emailed to LTIMindtree and ADM on Monday went unanswered until press time.

Mid-cap IT shines

ADM ended the 12 months through December 2024 with $85.53 billion in revenue, down 8.95% on a yearly basis because of lower sales prices. About 78% of its revenue comes from 'Ag Services and Oilseeds' segment, which includes the origination, merchandising, transportation, and storage of agricultural raw materials, and the crushing and processing of oilseeds. The company has close to 44,043 employees. To put this in perspective, the company is 19 times the size of LTIMindtree and has almost half the number of employees of its software service provider.

This is the second instance of an Indian software services provider, earning between $1 billion and $5 billion in annual revenue, bagging its largest contract in less than three months.

Coforge, India’s eighth-largest IT services firm,  won a 13-year deal worth $1.56 billion from Sabre Corp., a Southlake, Texas-based travel technology company, in March. Coforge would handle Sabre’s software product delivery and execute AI-led tasks for it.

According to Kotak Institutional Securities' analysts, revenue from the Sabre deal would be higher during the initial years as part of a new platform development phase, and it could contribute between 8% and 10% to Coforge’s revenue in the 12 months through March 2026.

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These deals reinforce the outperformance of mid-cap IT companies. LTIMindtree, Mphasis Ltd, Coforge, Persistent Systems Ltd, Hexaware Technologies Ltd, and Sonata Software Ltd reported yearly revenue growth between 4.43% and 31.2% in FY25 compared with their large-sized peers’ best growth of 4.3%. Analysts also expect the mid-cap IT services companies to eat into the share of large-caps due to leaner management teams and better execution.

Boost for Lambu

The LTIMindtree deal is also a boost for Venu Lambu, who was appointed the company’s chief executive designate in January. He is expected to serve a five-year stint as CEO, taking over the mantle from Debashis Chatterjee, who led the company since its inception in 2022.

“Securing this large deal marks a pivotal milestone as we transform to an AI-driven business model, helping our clients enhance productivity,” said Lambu in a press release dated 12 May.

Phil Fersht, chief executive of HFS Research, said, “This is a huge win for Venu Lambu as he sets out his roadmap for LTI. The company has much-needed renewed momentum and follows the example of Coforge where up-and-coming service providers are rattling the dominance of the incumbent firms.”

LTIMindtree was formed after the construction-to-financial services conglomerate L&T Group made a hostile bid for Mindtree in 2019. L&T merged its IT services arm, L&T Infotech, with Mindtree, effective November 2022.

Contrasting fortunes 

LTIMindtree’s largest contract contrasts with the fortunes of the country’s three largest software services companies, including Infosys Ltd and HCL Technologies Ltd, which struggled to secure big-ticket deals last year.

Fourth-largest Wipro Ltd was the outlier in the top five pack.

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Wipro bagged a 10-year contract with UK-based insurance company Phoenix Group, valued at $650 million, in March in its second deal of $500 million and upwards in less than a year. The Bengaluru-based company would handle Phoenix's policy administration, claims processing, customer support, data management and compliance support.

For LTIMindtree, a seventh or 14.3% of its business comes from companies in the retail or consumer segment. The latest large deal would increase its revenue from the segment, which reported a year-on-year decline of 0.8% in FY25.

Shareholders cheered the deal. The company’s stock closed 6.5% higher on Monday at ₹4,920 apiece compared with a 3.74% jump in BSE Sensex.