Essar sells off BPO to clear debt

New Delhi: Ruias-led Essar Group on Monday announced sale of its BPO company Aegis to Singapore-based private equity fund manager Capital Square Partners.

The deal is estimated at around $275-300 million and will be used by the company to pay its debt. This sale marks Essar's complete exit from BPO business.

Essar entered the BPO business in 2004 with the acquisition of the US-based Aegis Communications Group, with 2,000 employees.

In 2014, the company announced the successful sale of Aegis USA Inc (comprising Aegis’ operations in the USA, the Philippines and Costa Rica) to Teleperformance. As a result of the sale, the Aegis headcount and revenues were substantially reduced.

Since then, Aegis has once again grown the business substantially in terms of headcount, revenues and product offering.

Currently, Aegis has revenues of around $400 million, and employs more than 40,000 people across 47 centres in 10 countries with operations in India, the UAE, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Australia, South Africa, Peru, Argentina, Saudi Arabia and the UK.