Hinduja Global Solutions intends to acquire BPO units in UK, US
As a part of its policy to organize it idle money, Hinduja Global solutions, the BPO arm of the Hinduja Group, is planning to purchase BPO units in the United Kingdom and the United States. According to reports, the company possessed cash and cash-equivalent worth INR 648 crore, the major part of it – INR 577 crore, with it wholly owned subsidiary in Mauritius – the Pacific Horizon.
Quoting Ashok P Hinduja, Chairman of the Hinduja Group India, a website reports that the proposed acquisition of the targeted BPO units will be completed sometime during the subsequent few weeks. Although Hinduja did not reveal the names of the BPO firms to be acquired, he said that they were in talks with a business process outsourcing company in the UK that had a sales turnover in the region of £25 million (approximately INR 170 crore), while the revenues of the US BPO firm they are planning to acquire was to the tune of $250 million (approximately INR 1,000 crore).
An earlier report said that Hinduja Global Solutions, one of the three leading outsourcing solution vendors in India, has already set aside around $125 million for new acquisitions in the US and UK. At the same time, the BPO firm intends to recruit 2,500 fresh candidates as well as replace over 8,000 employees during the 2010-2011 fiscal to fill up the vacancies created by a 60 per cent attrition rate. According to Anand Vora, Hinduja Global Solutions Chief Financial Officer (CFO), the company, which specializes in voice-based services, intends to adopt the inorganic approach to penetrate the UK market and is also looking for acquisitions in the United States where the firm has been operating five centers for some time now.
Elaborating on the company’s future plans, Vora said that Hinduja Global Solutions is preparing to open an additional center in Manila as well as a new business center in China. At the same time, the company is also expanding its operations in tier-three cities in India and will soon set up centers in Guntur and Nagarcoil. Substantiating his company’s policies, the CFO said that while the operational costs were considerably low in tier-three, the talent pool available in such places was as good as found anywhere else.
According to Vora, the recent enactment of the US Healthcare Act provided great prospects for the Indian outsourcing companies and Hinduja Global Solutions is keen to cash on the opportunity since it has a number of prominent US customers for its healthcare sector, which contributed around 26 per cent of the company’s total revenues. He further said that 75 per cent of the company’s entire revenue was from the voice-based services and they intended to expand this service further. In addition, the company also intends to expand its footprint in non-voice based sectors like the financial and accounts verticals shortly.