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The country?s fifth-ranked business process outsourcing (BPO) provider, Firstsource SolutionsBSE 7.63 %, will get a new owner in the Sanjiv Goenka-promoted CESC LtdBSE -3.02 % in a transaction that values the company close to Rs 800 crore. The transaction will help Firstsource to raise part of the funds required to repay bondholders through a preferential allotment of shares and also allow its existing investors to dilute their holdings through a partial sale of their stake.

CESC will acquire 34.5% in the company through the preferential allotment and a further 15% from Firstsource?s existing investors ? ICICI BankBSE 0.64 %, private equity firm Temasek, and Fidelity. The preferential allotment at Rs 12.10 per share is at discount to today?s closing price on the BSE. Firstsource shares zoomed 7.6% to close at Rs 14.24 on BSE on Thursday. The shares have gone up over 50% in the last one month. CESC will also make an open offer as per Sebi norms for 26% of the public shareholding. The open offer price will be as per the Sebi formula of sixth-month average share price or the two-week average, whichever is higher.

?Given the current limitations of growth opportunities in the power sector we have been looking at entering the BPO space for a while. Firstsource presents a very good opportunity in high growth BPO verticals and has a very strong management team,? said Sanjiv Goenka, chairman of RP-Sanjiv Goenka (RP-SG) Group. The RP-SG Group will become the single largest shareholder in the company after the transaction and its stake could go up to around 75% depending on the success of the open offer.

Firstsource MD and CEO Rajesh Subramaniam, who was brought back into the company last year, said the new ownership would allow the company to further accelerate growth in its business segments. ?This is an important step in bolstering various stakeholders confidence in the company,? he said.

The stakeholding of the existing investors, each of who hold approximately 18% in the company, will come down to about 7% each. All of them will sell around 5% of their holdings in the expanded equity to CESC. ICICI Securities was the advisor to CESC in the transaction.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2012 at 2:09 pm and is filed under BPO News, BPO Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://www.bpo.biz/bpo-news-blog/2012/10/25/with-firstsource-acquisition-sanjiv-goenka-buys-into-bpo/

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