The company has allocated a total of 16 per cent of its equity for ESOP, which will be given over 10 to 12 years, according to Ramco Systems vice-chairman and managing director PR Venkatarama Raja. The company will be listed before that and then the details of ESOP, like slabs and rates to be offered would be finalised, he said.

This move is expected to arrest the attrition rate of over 20 per cent the software company has at present. The company also provides an array of schemes for capital asset purchase, housing and car loans. About 70 per cent of the employees have availed these schemes, say company officials. The company, at present, has over 1,100 employees.

The company was hived off from Ramco Industries on April 1999, mainly to enable the company to offer its employees ESOP, said Raja. The company is awaiting High Court orders regarding the demerger to go ahead with the formalities required for listing, including SEBI approvals and valuation of the company.

Since the company is being demerged from an already listed company, it would get automatic listing after the demerger. It will be listed in the same exchanges as the parent company, namely NSE (National Stock Exchange) and MSE (Madras Stock Exchange). The existing shareholders of Ramco Industries will receive shares in Ramco Systems Limited in the ratio of 1:1. After the company is listed, it will have an equity of seven to eight million shares. The turnover of the company is over Rs 70.84 crore.

Ramco Systems for the last ten years has been specialising in developing high-end enterprise application solutions. Its products include ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems, real time systems, artificial intelligence and networking. The company is an enterprise applications solution partner to 120 customers across India, Malaysia, Singapore, Switzerland and the US. It is also developing productive and flexible technology framework for web-based business software that would reduce the life-cycle cost of software from development to customer usage.