BPO and support services giant Serco has acquired UK-based contact centre provider, The Listening Company (TLC) for a potential £55.9m, including the repayment of £16.4m of debt. TLC employs 4,300 people across centres in Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow, Brora, Westminster, Tonbridge, Portsmouth and Richmond.
Serco will integrate TLC into its Local Government & Commercial division to handle high volume call handling and frontline customer services. Serco expects TLC’s operating margin to be “at least in line with the Group’s” – so we can read into that Serco’s overall 2012 target of 6.3% (see Serco shows resilience in 2010). In its year to 31 October, TLC made revenue of £82m with underlying operating profit of £4.4m before one-off investment (a 5.3% margin) so Serco will have some work to do to improve the margin over the next twelve months.