CESC tanks after acquisition of BPO firm Firstsource Solutions

Acquired 49.5% stake in BPO through its wholly-owned subsidiary, SpenLiq.

CESC Limited has tanked 13% to Rs 289 after the company announced the acquisition of 49.5% stake in business process outsourcing (BPO) firm, Firstsource Solutions (FSL) through its wholly-owned subsidiary, SpenLiq.

“The board of directors of the company at its meeting held on October 25, 2012 has noted that Spen Liq Private Limited, a wholly owned CESC subsidiary, is entering into an agreement with FSL to subscribe to 34.5% of FSL’s expanded paid up share capital,” Sanjiv Goenka-led CESC said in a filing.

Spen Liq is also executing a separate share purchase agreement with three of FSL’s existing shareholders to purchase, collectively, 15% of FSL’s total expanded share capital from them, it added. CESC, through Spen Liq has also made an open offer to acquire an additional 26% stake in FSL at Rs 12.20 a share.

The deal would be worth about Rs 650 crore, Sanjiv Goenka, chairman of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, toldBusiness Standard. 

The stock opened at Rs 320 and hit a low of Rs 270 on the BSE. As many as a combined 2.9 million shares have already changed hands on the counter in morning trades against an average sub one million shares that were traded daily in past two weeks.

The stock of Firstsource Solutions has also down by 11% at Rs 12.71 on back of heavy volumes on the BSE.