GE is considering the sale of its back-office services business in India, according a local newspaper report. GE says the report “speculative.”
The report suggested Convergys and Hewlett-Packard were the likeliest buyers of the business, which might fetch $1 billion.
“During the course of our business we frequently hold discussions with a number of existing and prospective business partners, suppliers and customers,” said GE in a statement. “These discussions are internal to us.”
The Indian outsourcing sector has sen some consolidation recently. IBM bought call centre firm Daksh in April for an estimated $150-$200 million. Last month, Citigroup paid $112 million to raise its stake in e-Serve International to 87 percent from 44.4 percent.
GE Capital International Services (GECIS), which employs 12,000 people in India, was one of the pioneers of outsourcing back-office work such as data processing and call centre services to India. Started in 1997, it provides services to 30 different GE businesses in the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia, including finance and accounting, call centres, insurance claims processing, analytics, customer training and IT services. It has operations in four Indian cities — Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Jaipur — as well as China, Hungary and Mexico.