Essar Arm , Aegis plans to expand in North and Latin America

By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 26 October 2010, 19:31 IST
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Bangalore: Aegis, Essar Group's business process outsourcing arm is looking to expand its operations in North and Latin America through the profit generated by the company and through mergers, acquisitions and takeovers reports Thanuja BM of Finanacial Chronical. Aegis is currently working on strategies to have at least 15,000 people by end of 2011 and become the largest Indian employer in the U.S. Aegis, part of the $15 billion Essar group, presently has 5,000 people in the region across 9 centres in U.S. and including 500 people in Costa Rica. Sandip Sen, President and CEO of Aegis told "We want to have a global delivery model where we will be where our clients want us to be. Some of the customers want us to be part of their business in the U.S. While we are hiring more locals, we are also now talking to several customers to buy inhouse captive centres which will bring us more size and financial benefits to clients." The company has been shopping for investments lately, recently investing in AGC Networks in an acquisition purchase that saw its approximated earnings stand at about $700 million with its headcount reaching 40,000. Aparup Sengupta, Aegis MD and SEO said the company was currently considering 5 to 6 companies in the U.S., Latin America, Europe and Africa as potential investments. According to him, Aegis is targeting a minimum of four acquisition investments yearly, regardless of deal size. The company would seek the potential investment assets, carry out an evaluation to establish the viability of the investments before undertaking them, said Sengupta. The MD called it a "double cylinder engine" strategy aimed at hitting the planned $1 billion milestone, and will be undertaken through both organic and inorganic growth strategies. Recently, the BPO firm has been robust in its investments, making 13 new investment acquisitions in the past 3 to 4 years, with the most recent investment being the investment in the acquisition of US based Sallie Mae's customer service centre in Texas. The Sallie Mae investment was followed by the purchase of Avaya's 59.13 percent stake in AGC Networks, a communications solutions provider for $44.5 million, about Rs 205 crore. Aegis of India has acquired Argentine BPO Company Actionline from Young and Rubicam Inversiones Publicitárias, S.A. and its business partner. Aegis presently gets between 25-30 per cent of its overall revenue of $700 million from its U.S. operations while U.S. customers account for over 50 per cent of revenue.