Friday, December 5

Quatrro BPO plans $300 m expansion drive

QUATRRO BPO Solutions is in ‘fairly advanced’ talks to acquire about half-a-dozen companies, one of them valued at over $300 million, its managing director said on Thursday. “It’s an exciting environment to acquire. Some good companies are available at very good prices,” Quatrro MD Raman Roy said. The BPO firm is looking at acquiring companies doing legal process outsourcing and outsourcing in healthcare, financial services and insurance verticals. Mr Roy said Quatrro is likely to complete one acquisition, valued at over $100 million, before March 2009. Quatrro, which employs 2,500 people with annual revenue of $70 million, has lined up funding commitments worth $300 million for acquisitions. It uses structured transactions to acquire, where the funding partner picks up a stake in the parent company or the acquired entity in return for financing the deal. In July, it acquired UK-based Babel Media, a specialist outsourcing firm in the gaming industry, for an undisclosed sum. The deal, done with DE Shaw group, was pegged at $100-150 million by industry sources. Founded by Mr Roy, the management holds a majority stake in the BPO firm while private equity firms Olympus Capital and DE Shaw are the other shareholders. While Olympus had invested $100 million in Quatrro for a ‘significant minority’ stake last year, DE Shaw picked up a ‘low, single-digit stake’ in Quatrro this year. Commenting on the business environment for BPO industry, Mr Roy said that growth rates would be muted but Indian companies can gain by tapping opportunities presented by the slowdown. Quatrro, for instance, has become a leading outsourcing firm in the area of foreclosures.

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