HCL TECH BUYS UK BPO FIRM LFS FOR $2 MILLION

New Delhi

HCL Technologies, the country’s fifth largest software-services firm, on Wednesday announced the acquisition of UK-based BPO firm Liberata Financial Services (LFS) for $2 million. HCL will acquire four LFS delivery centres in the UK with 800 professionals as part of the acquisition and invest $24 million in the business over the next three years.

LFS, which provides administrative and customer services to the life insurance and pensions industry, will earn revenues of about $60 million this year and has an order book of $540 million to be executed over the next few years. “This acquisition will equip HCL with a ready capability across the value chain by providing access to an existing revenue stream of policy management, actuarial and analytics catapulting HCL to become a leading service provider in the UK market for the Life and Pensions industry,” said HCL BPO president & CEO Ranjit Narasimhan.

This would be the second acquisition for HCL Technologies this year. In February it had acquired US-based Capital Stream Inc, in an all-cash deal of about $40 million. The acquisition was aimed at strengthening the software firm’s presence in the financial services space. Capital Stream provides end-to-end lending and straight through processing solutions to commercial banks and finance companies in North America.