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3i and TCS battle for UK BPO
By agencies
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Thursday, 07 September 2006, 19:30 IST
MUMBAI: Private equity and venture capital firm, 3i Group Plc and TCS, AsiaÂ’s leading software services and consulting company are competing to acquire U.K. business process outsourcing vendor Vertex, press reports have revealed.
United Utilities, VertexÂ’s parent company, is understood to have rated its subsidiary between $760million and $950million. However, an impending deal with TCS is already faltering over price, signifying that United may be asking too much for Vertex.
Assumptions on VertexÂ’s prospects began in June, when United disclosed it was bringing in investment bank Merrill Lynch to examine the operations performance. United has continually maintained that this was merely an attempt to spot areas for future growth, rather than the initial part of a discarding strategy.
3i had brought in Akshaya Bhargava, former head of BPO at Infosys, to head up its move into the BPO market. The investment group is believed to have teamed up with Quatrro BPO Solutions, a start-up founded by offshore entrepreneur Raman Roy, as a part of its strategy to acquire Vertex.