Apollo Health Street Acquires US BPO Zavata Inc.

India's healthcare outsourcing company Apollo Health Street Limited has acquired Zavata Inc, an Atlanta-based business process outsourcing (BPO) unit for Rs.6.96 billion ($170 million).

The total outlay including working capital for the deal works out to $185 million for Apollo Health Street and the company will fund it through a mix of debt and equity.

The company has tied up with Bank of India and Barclays Capital for $135 million and the balance will be funded by the promoters like Apollo Hospitals.

Post acquisition, Apollo Health Street becomes one of world's largest healthcare outsourcing company, its chairman Prathap C. Reddy told the media here Thursday.

The company is an associate of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited, which runs the largest hospital chain in the country.

Zavata Inc was formerly known as STI Knowledge Inc. In 2003, technology entrepreneur Satish Sanan, Mellon Ventures and BV-Cornerstone Ventures, made a strategic investment in it.

Apollo Health Street has employee strength of 1,200 and Zavata has around 1,000 with 459 working in its Hyderabad centre. The combined entity will have a customer base of 160.

The acquisition makes Apollo Health Street a fully integrated healthcare BPO unit with further capabilities in providing enterprise support services, said Sangita Reddy, managing director.

This is the fourth acquisition for the company and second in the US and some more may be on the anvil as its acquisition team is on the lookout, she said.

Sangita Reddy said Apollo Health Street was building a contact centre in Chennai with an outlay of Rs.200 million. In the first phase the centre will have 400 employees and the intake will be gradually increased to the full capacity of 2,000 seats.

The company currently has similar centres in Delhi and Hyderabad.

Source-IANS
SRM/C