Hero group acquires Scotland's TSC for 40 mn pounds

Hero Group has acquired Scotland’s largest call centre company, Telecom Service Centres (TSC), in a deal worth £40 million. TSC, which employs around 3,000 people, would be merged with the group’s call centre subsidiary, HeroITeS. The new entity will be christened TSC Hero and will offer customers a multi-site solution, increasing market potential and growth prospects in the core markets of Europe, Asia and the US.

The Hero move marks another deal by Indian ITeS firms in mainland UK. It also makes Hero UK's third big Indian-owned call centre player after HCL and First Source. This is besides TSC’s big operations in Peterboro.

The development is also in keeping with the trend of Indian ITeS companies getting around the ‘UK only’ call centre syndrome that many UK–based clients have started to insist on recently. TSC chief executive Ken Hills told reporters that the move will not result in jobs shifting to India. “This is not about taking UK jobs to India. In the last three years, we have created 1,500 jobs in the UK and the growth rate will probably continue,” he said. There will also be no change in the management.

Mr Hills said TSC’s clients have all made ‘positive’ decisions to locate their operations in the UK despite higher costs—while searching for additional services that complement existing arrangements. TSC’s clients include Vodafone, T-mobile, Hewlett-Packard and HSBC. TSC was established at Rothesay, on the Isle of Bute, in 1994. The company has ten ‘contact centres’, nine of which are in Scotland.

Incidentally, the deal gives an exit option for Lloyd’s Capital Development, the private equity arm of Lloyds TSB Group, which backed a £28-million management buyout in 2003. TSC made pre-tax profits of nearly £3 million last year, up from £2.5 million in 2005 while turnover rose from £43.5 million to just under £50 million. Gurgaon-based HeroITeS offers outsourcing services in the voice support, email services, technical support, finance and accounting BPO.

(source: Economic Times)