January 27 (SeeNews) - Croatia's Meritus Ulaganja [ZSE:MRUL] said on Monday its business process outsourcing (BPO) services provider M+ Group (Meritus Upravljanje) has agreed to acquire its Turkish peer CMC, owned by UK-based private equity firm Mid Europa Partners.
Under the acquisition agreement, Mid Europa will get a 30% ownership stake in the newly merged entity, Meritus Ulaganja said in a statement with the Zagreb bourse.
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Meritus's shareholders approved the transaction at their January 27 general assembly meeting, the statement said, adding its completion is expected by the end of January.
CMC is Turkey's largest outsourced call centre and customer management services provider, employing more than 4,000 people. Following the merger, M+ Group is expected to emerge as a leading regional contact centre and BPO services provider, the statement said.
"M+ Group will now serve more than 220 clients in 58 countries worldwide, generating an annual turnover in access of EUR 65 million," the head of M+ Group supervisory board, Zvonimmir Mrsic, said in the statement.
He added that the group will employ more than 7,000 people, and will focus on the acquisition of new international clients on the global market.
"We believe in the long term growth prospects of the BPO industry in the region and globally and are committed to our future cooperation with M+ Group in creating the leading regional BPO services provider. The focus of the combined business will be on serving the most demanding international blue chip clients," Kerim Turkmen, partner at Mid Europa, said in the same statement.
Zagreb-based M+ Group has key clients in telecommunications, energy, and transportation, among others, including Deutsche Telekom, Microsoft, RWE, Bosch, DHL, Siemens, Carlsberg. The group is already present in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia.
The statement recalled that M+ Group completed a new share issue last year, with some twenty investors, including Croatia's all four mandatory pension funds, investing 93 million kuna ($13.8 million/12.5 million euro) in the company. Following the capital increase, its parent, Meritus Ulaganja listed its shares on the Zagreb bourse on August 8.
In September, Meritus Ulaganja acquired 51% in Serbian BPO services provider Trizma for 2.16 million euro ($2.38 million).
Meritus Ulaganja's shares traded on the bourse only once since their listing, closing at 262 kuna on October 1 with 90 stock changing hands.
Its two largest shareholders are local businessman Manica Pirc Oreskovic with 29.14% and Stjepan Oreskovic with 29.13%, while the remainder belongs to smaller shareholders, bourse data showed on January 27.
(1 euro = 7.44258 kuna)