Everstone exits Singapore BPO business to Brookfield

The size of the transaction has not been disclosed but Indian media reports put it at approximately $450 million. The buyer is Brookfield Business Partners, a listed unit of the alternative asset manager that targets businesses with high barriers to entry, low production costs, and scope for operational improvement. The objective is to generate long-term returns of at least 15%.

Everise is a customer experience solutions and technology provider that helps companies improve their engagement with clients. Its offering comprises traditional multilingual customer support, as well as related software and artificial intelligence-enabled services. The company is headquartered in Singapore and has 15 offices around the world. Most of its customers are in the US.

Everstone established the Everise platform in collaboration with Sudhir Agarwal of Singapore-based Sunrise BPO, in 2016. He will remain CEO once Brookfield assumes control. Their first acquisition was C3, a US customer relationship management solutions business. The $150 million deal facilitated an exit for Stone Point Capital. Agarwal said the goal was to increase revenue from $200 million to $500 million.

C3 had seven operating centers in the US, the Philippines and Guatemala, and Everstone committed to supporting expansion into India. At the same time – and partly through further bolt-on acquisitions – Everise grew from a pure-play call center business into an end-to-end vendor of customer experience management and digital services. It is especially strong in the healthcare and technology sectors.

“Everise is a case study for transforming an old-world business into a next-generation customer experience platform. By employing exceptional management and operational capabilities along with a combination of organic and inorganic growth in the digital segments, Everise has registered accelerating revenues and profitability,” Sameer Sain, co-founder and CEO of Everstone, said in a statement.

Everstone is currently deploying its fourth private equity fund, which closed at $730 million in 2015, and a successor vehicle is expected to launch next year. In 2019, the firm hired Suresh Vaswani, a former executive at Wipro, to focus on IT investments. Other portfolio companies in this space include Servion, another customer experience player, Omega Healthcare, which does revenue cycle management for US healthcare businesses, and Infostretch, a digital engineering services firm.

This is Everstone’s second deal in a year involving Brookfield. In February, Brookfield agreed to buy a 40% stake in IndoStar Capital, a non-banking financial company launched by Everstone, for INR14.5 billion ($202 million).

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Southeast Asia
• Trade sale
• Buyouts
• Support services
• India
• Singapore
• USA
• Everstone Capital
• Brookfield Asset Management
• professional services