Intelenet Global Services Ltd has acquired the back office operations of FirstGroup Plc for $67 Mn.

Earlier in Nov’09, Intelenet was looking to acquire a US based healthcare records processing firm for $25-35 Mn.

Intelenet Global Services – established in 1994 - is a leading global third party BPO Company that that delivers BPO services to Fortune 500 companies in the UK, USA, Australia and India.

Intelenet has grown from just 25 employees at a single site to over 26,000 employees across 30 locations in India and overseas in just 8 years, making it the 2nd largest employer in the Indian BPO space.

Transaction Reference: FT

Intelenet was started as a JV between HDFC and TCS, but the ownership has seen a lot of changes since inception. TCS exited Intelenet by selling its 50% stake to HDFC for $35 Mn in July’04, which was then sold to Barclays Bank in Aug’04 for $35.5 Mn. Blackstone PE bought Intelenet from HDFC and Barclays Bank in July’07 for $200 Mn through a MBO.

This is Intelenet's fourth acquisition, it had earlier acquired Travelport and Upstream BPO, which helped it diversify into the travel domain. It also acquired 51% in Sparsh BPO from Spanco Telesystems in 2005, which is into domestic outsourcing.

There was also a rumor that Genpact is looking to acquire Intelenet for about $600 – 750 Mn.

FirstGroup is the UK’s largest bus operator running more than one in five of all local bus services and the UK’s largest rail operator, running nearly a quarter of the passenger rail network and carrying some 285 million passengers a year.

FirstGroup is also the largest provider of student transportation in North America with a fleet of approximately 60,000 yellow school buses, carrying 4 million students every day across the US and Canada. FirstGroup also operates Greyhound, the only national provider of scheduled intercity coach transportation services in both the US and Canada.

Recently, it won a contract to run bus services for spectators at the London 2012 Olympics. It has also provided bus services for the Manchester Commonwealth Games in 2002.

Of late, a number of Indian outsourcing companies have either acquired foreign companies or are looking for overseas acquisitions. Earlier in the day, Aditya Birla Minacs announced the acquisition of UK based Compass BPO Ltd for an undisclosed sum in an all cash deal.

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