Frankfurt: Tata Consultancy Services, India’s top software services exporter, is interested in Siemens’ IT Solutions and Services (SIS) unit, a German newspaper said on Saturday.

Talks between the two companies would begin next week in Munich, where Siemens is based, Germany’s Boersen-Zeitung said, without saying where it obtained the information from.

Siemens declined to comment.

A couple of days ago, sources close to the company said that Siemens Chief Executive Peter Loescher was considering the divestment of SIS’s external business, the paper said.

Siemens is in the midst of a major overhaul and regrouped its divisions into three main sectors to benefit from global growth trends - energy, industry and health care - at the beginning of this year.

Indian outsourcing firms like Tata Consultancy Services and rival Infosys Technologies are expanding in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America to cut dependence on the US market, which accounts for more than half the sector’s revenue.

On Friday, Indian software services firm HCL Technologies launched a rival bid for Britain’s Axon Group Plc, for which Infosys is also bidding, sending Axon’s share up sharply in on hopes of a bid battle.