Aegis, the BPO arm of the $15-billion Essar Group, on Tuesday said it has acquired BPO company Actionline in Argentina, which has an annual revenue of over $50 million. However, the company did not disclose the value of the deal. With the acquisition Aegis plans to tap into the large domestic outsourcing market in Latin America. Actionline, one of the largest BPOs in Argentina, has a workforce of about 5,000 spread across seven centres in five cities. With focus on the domestic market, Actionline has clients in the telecom, banking, insurance, and energy sectors. It offers contact centre services and data base management for onshore clients.

Aparup Sengupta, managing director and chief executive, Aegis, said, ?We have found an able partner in Actionline to expand our footprint in Latin America. Actionline fills a key void in Aegis? geographical and services portfolio.?

?With 1-3 hour time difference with New York and 2-4 hours between major European cities, Argentina has a very favourable time zone,? said Sandip Sen, president Americas and global chief marketing officer, Aegis.

?Its multi-lingual workforce can be effectively tapped for not only USA but also non-English speaking markets in Europe, which is Aegis? next frontier,? said Sen. Actionline is Aegis’ 16th acquisition over the last five years. In May, Aegis acquired US-based Sallie Mae’s customer service centre in Killeen, Texas and integrated 350 Sallie Mae employees to Aegis’ payroll. Aegis currently has about 40,000 people spread across 42 locations, with presence in ten countries.

Aegis also has plans to triple its headcount in the US by the end of next year seeing increasing business potential in the region. The BPO company, which currently has 5,000 employees in the US is looking at 15,000 people over the next 12 months. ? To get big business deals in the US it is important to have a large local presence. We want to build our headcount through both organic and inorganic growth,? said Sen. The BPO plans to take its current 9 centres to about 17 centres in the Americas region by the end of next year.

Aegis, whose major business in the US, comes from the healthcare and BFSI verticals, sees sectors like financial services and utilities fuel future growth.