Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)

During the last five years a growing number of companies has outsourced ‘white-collar’ operational functions, such as payroll or document and print management, to increasingly global operators such as WNS and Serco, or has ‘offshored’ these activities to lower cost countries such as India.

Although business process outsourcing (BPO) is a high-growth market, there have been relatively few sizeable private equity investments. Examples include the acquisition of Vertex by Oak Hill Capital and of Liberata by GAP. Both Capita and Serco were originally private equity-backed businesses.

Another interesting example is the 3i-backed NCP Services. NCP Services was de-merged from National Car Parks (NCP), the United Kingdom’s biggest parking services company, in 2007.

Since it was established in 2000, NCP Services has created a leading position in the fast growing ‘on-street’ parking enforcement market and used it to expand rapidly into adjacent outsourcing markets, such as clamping and removal, processing for London’s congestion charge and Transport for London, and debt recovery operations.

Equiniti, one of the United Kingdom’s leading share registration business, which was acquired by Advent International for £550 million in 2007, is an example of an emerging player in the broader financial services BPO market that is transforming itself into a more broadly-based financial services BPO provider. The strategy is to increase growth through the continued roll-out of complementary services and the pursuit of domestic and international expansion opportunities.