Essar Group's BPO arm Aegis to launch IPO

Mumbai: Aegis, a BPO arm of Essar Group plans to raise Rs.600 - Rs.700 crore via the public issue. This will be the first IPO from Essar Group Essar Oil had hit the market in 1995. The company has appointed Bank of America-Merrill Lynch and IL&FS as bankers for the IPO.

Essar Group plans to use this IPO as a currency for future mergers and acquisitions that it is said to be looking at. Once the Aegis gets listed on bourses, it would join a handful of pure play listed BPOs such as Genpact, Firstsource, EXL and WNS Global Services. Other than Firstsource, all are listed outside India. While an Indian listing is the most likely option for Aegis, a probable London listing is also not ruled out. 

Aegis works in the field of customer lifecycle management (CLM) for the last 20 years. When the Essar group acquired Aegis four years ago, it was a loss-making company. However today, it has 135 clients and operations across 38 delivery locations around the world, reports The Times of India.