CCI approves merger of SKR BPO and Intelenet with Serco BPO

NEW DELHI: Fair trade regulator Competition Commission of India has approved the proposed merger of SKR BPO Services and Intelenet Global Services with Serco BPO.

All the three entities are engaged into providing call centre services, transaction and data processing, web-enabled customer care, data digitisation and IT-enabled services.

"...the Commission is of the opinion that proposed combination is not likely to have an appreciable adverse effect on competition in India and, therefore, the Commission hereby approves the proposed combination," it said in an order dated October 16.

The regulator observed that domestic operations of the three entities constitute a small percentage of the overall domestic Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) segment of the 'IT-BPO' sector in India.

Serco BPO holds 99.9 per cent stake in SKR BPO and Intelenet Global Services is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SKR BPO. Post merger, the ultimate holding company of Serco BPO would be Serco Group Plc.

According to the Commission, the proposed combination is a restructuring between enterprises belonging to the same group. Also, the management and control over the activities carried on by the companies before and after the proposed combination would remain unchanged, it added.

The three firms jointly submitted the notice seeking approval to the Commission on October 3.

As per the notice, these entities' earn majority of their revenues from exports.