Convergys to acquire its Indian arm

By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 29 September 2004, 19:30 IST
Printer Print Email Email
NEW DELHI: America’s largest call centre company Convergys plans to buy out all its shares from the Indian shareholders to make Convergys India a wholly-owned subsidiary of Convergys US. According to sources, US-based Convergys Information Management Group plans to acquire shares of Convergys Information India held by two resident shareholders. Both hold a total of 10,000 shares and will now transfer these to Convergys US for an undisclosed sum. With this, Convergys Information Management (India) will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Convergys Information Management and Convergys IMG International Services. Convergys functions through two operating segments — Information Management Group (IMG) and Customer Management Group (CMG). IMG provides outsourced billing and information services and software, while CMG provides outsourced marketing and customer support services and outsourced employee care services. Sources say the share-transfer proposal of Convergys Information Management has recently been cleared by the government. While Convergys India representatives refused to confirm or deny the move, Convergys US did not respond to ET’s e-mail queries. The $2.3bn billing and customer services giant started its operations in India about three years ago in Gurgaon with a modest headcount of 200. It now plans to ramp up to 20,000 employees by the end of next year. With this, it might emerge as the largest call centre in the country next year. Currently, it is estimated to be the third largest BPO company in India, employing close to 10,000 people and has revenues of about $94m in the country. The largest BPO in India is GE, which employs about 12,000 people, and is followed closely by Wipro-Spectramind with about 11,500 people. Convergys, which caters to a large number of Fortune 100 clients in the financial services, communications and consumer products, employs more than 60,000 people in 57 customer contact centres in data centres and other offices in the US, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Its information management group processes about 50m bills a month from its data centres, provides consulting services and licenses its data processing software.