Under the terms of the deal, Irvine, California-based Exult will pay PwC a total of $17m to acquire the business, which employs some 500 people in South America, the UK, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Hong Kong and Singapore.
The company will also take on the division’s existing client base, which is built up of blue-chip names including Standard Chartered Bank, Equifax, Safeway, Tibbet & Britten, Grupo Algar, and contracts which it said were scheduled to last a further two to six years, with a revenue run rate of $25m per year.
Exult estimates that the business will generate $100m in additional revenue for the business over the remaining life of the deals, however this could be increased if the contracts are extended.
The PwC division employs specialists with skills in accounting and cross border finance, as well as having some proprietary tools and knowledge bases that Exult hopes will enable it to continue to win new business.
Exult has been actively expanding its presence in international markets in recent weeks. Earlier this month the company opened its first offshore customer contact center, in Mumbai, India, where the company aims to provide back-office processing services for its clients.
The company said it plans to have 300 employees working in the center by the end of 2003. The center adds to a near shore facility the company plans to open this month.
PwC has had to scale back its BPO activities due to regulatory issues, which forced the company to sell its PricewaterhouseCoopers Human Resource Consulting division to London, UK-based Capita for 14m pounds ($19.9m) cash.
Through that deal, PwC sold to three UK-based operations, which employ a total of 220 people across offices in London, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Edinburgh.
Following the latest divestiture, PwC now has only one remaining international BPO client. Exult expects the deal to be neutral to earnings in 2003, and then accretive in 2004.
Source: Computerwire
