Print services firm, R.R. Donnelley & Sons has announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire OfficeTiger, a provider of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services, in an all-cash deal, for approximately $250 million.
OfficeTiger will continue with its brand, ad its top management team. It will take into its fold, the BPO business of Astron which R. R. Donnelley had acquired in June 2005, taking its total headcount to 6,000 people, informed Joseph Sigelman, Co-CEO, OfficeTiger. That will make OfficeTiger one of the biggest offshore-centric BPO companies and will put it in the same league as India-based WNS.
Though R.R. Donnelley is traditionally into print services, OfficeTiger will continue to pursue its fast growing legal services business.
Set up in 1999 by Randolph Altschuler and Joseph Sigelman, OfficeTiger has followed a completely different path than most of the India-based BPO companies. While most India-based companies have largely focused on voice based call center services or back-end processing services such as claims processing for insurance companies, OfficeTiger, has drawn its revenue primarily from what it calls premedia services that includes word processing, publishers’ services, desktop publishing, presentation and creative services. Its major client in the space includes Merrill Corp.
OfficeTiger also has a strong practice in legal services with clients such as New York-based law firm Millbank, Tweed, Hadley, & McCloy LLP and London-based law firm Allen & Overy. In addition, it provides services to financial-services as well as professional-services firms.
The OfficeTiger acquisition is the second biggest M&A deal involving an offshore BPO firm. Only Genpact, then called Gecis, drew a higher valuation for itself, when, in November 2004, two private-equity firms — Oak Hill Partners and General Atlantic invested $500 million for a 60% ownership in the company. Previous big acquisitions were a $160 million acquisition of offshore call center firm Daksh services by IBM in April 2004 and a $102 million acquisition of offshore BPO firm Spectramind by Indian IT-services firm Wipro in January 2003.
