Digest/BPO

FirstSource Buys MedAssist Holding

FirstSource has entered into an agreement to acquire MedAssist
Holding, a leading provider of revenue cycle management in the healthcare
industry in the US. The acquisition is valued at $330 mn and is subject to
regulatory approval under the US HSR statute. MedAssist, headquartered in
Louisville, Kentucky, has 1,400 employees. This includes eligibility services,
receivables management services and post-default collections services for
healthcare providers.

Accenture, BT Sign BPO Agreement

Accenture is providing BT with finance and accounting services under a
five-and-a-half-year BPO contract. Under the terms of the contract, Accenture is
providing services related to management reporting, financial planning and
analysis, month-end close activities and budgeting/forecasting to BT's
operations, initially focused in the UK. The services are being delivered
through Accenture's global delivery network using delivery centers in India.

Zensar Launches Insurance Vertical

Zensar Technologies has announced the win of a $7 mn insurance deal with a
large South African insurance company. This takes the company's business in
the insurance vertical to $10 mn mark. It follows $3 mn business from a US Mid
West premium provider of insurance products, and a million dollar initial
contract for BPO services with a Latin America Insurance client. The deal
requires multiple components of maintenance and support, testing, COMPASS
skills, application migration, and enterprise architectural consulting.

Apollo Health Street Buys Zavata

Apollo Health Street, a global healthcare outsourcing solutions
provider, has announced the acquisition of Zavata, headquartered in Atlanta, GA,
a leading provider of blended-shore, end-to-end, healthcare focused business
process outsourcing services. The acquisition will strengthen AHS's position
as one of the largest healthcare BPO providers and through the combined
expertise of both companies, AHS can provide to its customers a more
comprehensive set of service offerings.

3i Infotech Buys Stake in HCCA

3i Infotech has acquired 51% stake in BPO services provider HCCA
Business Services. The company has been acquired for its delivery capabilities
in HR operations. Clients of HCCA include several leading domestic and
multinational banks, insurance companies, investment banks, brokerage houses
etc. Earlier it acquired a 50.5% stake in 'aok in-house BPO services' and
'aok in-house factoring services' for an undisclosed sum.

Fiserv Announces New GDC

Fiserv Global Services has announced it has added a new global delivery
center in its network in Costa Rica. The new center is part of the company's
growth strategy in countries outside the US focused on leveraging world-class
talent available in other countries. Fiserv's Costa Rican center will provide
software development, BPO and technical support services to Fiserv and its
customers, especially in the banking industry.

HeroITeS Acquires TSC

HeroITeS has acquired Telecom Service Centers, one of Britain's leading
contact center companies. TSC Hero, the combined new entity, will have over
3,500 seats. The new entity starts with combined revenues of over $100 mn.
HeroITeS has acquired control of TSC from LDC, the venture capital arm of
Lloyds. TSC was formed in 1994. Hero has asked the management team at TSC to
stay in place and be a part of the overall management team of the new entity.

Accenture, MS BPO Agreement

Accenture is providing Microsoft with a range of finance and accounting and
procurement services under a seven-year, $185 mn business BPO agreement. The
agreement outsources some of Microsoft's transactional finance activities and
consolidates services currently provided by other vendors. The finance and
accounting services Accenture provides include accounts payable, travel and
expense, and record-to-report functions, including fixed assets, general ledger,
treasury, and statutory reporting.

Dhanus Technologies IPO

The initial public offering of Dhanus Technologies was subscribed
28.47 times. The 38,35,000-share issue received bids for 10.92 crore share.
Around 1.95 crore bids were made at cut off price. The portion reserved for
qualified institutional investors was subscribed 36 times and non-institutional
investors subscribed 27 times, while the retail portion subscribed 19 times. The
price band of the issue was fixed at Rs 280-295 per share of Rs 10 each. The
company would raise Rs 107.38-113.13 crore from the IPO.

TCS Plans New Tech Platforms

TCS expects to launch two new technology platforms shortly, which should
help the company expand its BPO offerings. The chief operating officer, N
Chandrasekaran, said that the company expected to launch the human resource
outsourcing (HRO) and finance and accounting (F&A) platforms in the next
couple of months, which have been developed internally. TCS derives close to six
per cent of its revenues from the BPO business, which mainly comes from the
transaction processing and platform-based offerings.