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NEW DELHI, NOV 8: General Electric Co said on Monday it had sold a 60 per cent stake in its pioneering Indian business process outsourcing unit for $500 million, making it the largest deal in the country's booming back-office industry.
GE, one of the earliest entrants in a $3.6 billion sector that is growing at 50 per cent a year, said two private equity firms, General Atlantic Partners and Oak Hill Capital Partners, would buy the stake in GE Capital International Services (GECIS).
GE will retain the remaining 40 per cent. The deal is expected to be completed in six months, when regulatory approvals come.
"This transaction allows us to offer our quality business process services to an expanding roster of leading companies worldwide," Pramod Bhasin, president and CEO of GE Capital International Services, said in a statement.
GECIS was one of the first multinationals to outsource back-office work such as data processing and call centre services to India on a large scale.
The operation, started in 1997, is often cited as the biggest outsourcing success story in the country. It provides services to 30 different GE businesses in the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia.
The company has 17,000 employees, including about 12,000 people in India. Its other operations are in China, Hungary and Mexico.
It is the largest back-office services operation in India, providing services such as finance and accounting, insurance claims processing, analytics, customer training and IT services. |