Lee Putnam in fray to buy Amex call centre

TH Lee Putnam Ventures, a technology-focused private equity firm that manages $1.1 billion in capital commitments, is believed to have evinced interest in the call center operation of American Express.

TH Lee Putnam Ventures is affiliated with Thomas H Lee Partners, a leading buyout firm, and Putnam Investments, a leading global money management firm.

Sources close to the development say a string of private equity players has shown interest in picking up stakes in Amex's call centre operations. TH Lee Putnam Ventures is one of them.

The private equity firms' representative declined to comment on this issue.

An American Express spokesperson said, "We have absolutely no plans to sell our Gurgaon centre. We have built a global, distributed service delivery network, which has world-class proprietary operations, supplemented by leading vendor partners in many markets around the world, including India. Our proprietary centres are an integral part of this approach and play an important role in driving business performance, providing operating flexibility and supporting business continuity. We have absolutely no plans to change this approach or to sell our centre at Gurgaon."

He adds, "We have been in India since 1921, expanded our businesses significantly over the years, and continue to be committed to the country. We are among the pioneers of the IT enabled services space, commencing our business in the mid-1990s when we opened our finance back-office facility, and we have continued to grow our presence since."

However, market sources said TH Lee Putnam Ventures is indeed in the fray for a stake in the centre. Besides, there is another private equity investor which is equally serious about it.

In addition to having its own captive centre, American Express is also an aggressive outsourcer to most of the IT companies in India. It has one centre in Gurgaon which was established in 1994, has over 3,000 employees and focuses on BPO activities.

TH Lee Putnam Ventures primary focus is private transactions in later-stage venture, public entities, middle market buyouts, recapitalisations and spinouts of corporate divisions.

The firm had early this year taken a majority stake in the SPI Technologies. SPI Technologies was founded by Alan R Fraser as a database conversion company in Manila, the Philippines, in 1980.

It was among the first companies in Asia to provide data abstraction services to customers such as Boeing, Elsevier Science, and Sony, among others. In 1988 SPI Technologies acquired Pacific Data Conversion (PDCC), thereby adding key facilities in the Philippines and India.