WNS BPO transfer to Aviva to be delayed

Business process outsourcing (BPO) firm WNS (Holdings) Ltd has informed the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) that it has exercised the call option given by Aviva Global Services to extend the date for transfer of the project and operations of its Pune facility to Aviva from January 1, 2008 to April 1, 2008.

The call option notice period has also been reduced from three months to one month, which if exercised by Aviva on April 1, 2008 would require WNS to transfer the Pune facility to Aviva on May 1, 2008.

According to recent media reports, India's second-largest IT services provider Infosys had offered to buy Aviva for around Rs 300 crore.

WNS had established a wholly-owned subsidiary in Pune, Ntrance Customer Services, in February 2004 for providing BPO services exclusively to Aviva, which also had similar agreements with EXL Services and 24/7 Customer.

The Pune facility accounted for 5.2 per cent, 6.5 per cent and 5.1 per cent of WNS' revenue in financial years 2007, 2006 and 2005, respectively.

In August 2006, Aviva had said it wanted to consolidate these BPO centres into its newly-formed offshore services arm - Aviva Global Services.

As a part of the business arrangement with Aviva, WNS granted an option to it to purchase the shares of Ntrance from WNS. The option was exercisable by Aviva at any time "" on or after July 1, 2007 "" with the effective date of transfer not being earlier than January 1, 2008.

On September 10, 2007, WNS entered into another agreement with Aviva to amend the existing terms of exercise of Aviva's option. Pursuant to this amendment, the earliest date of exercise of the option was extended to January 1, 2008, with the effective date of transfer not being earlier than April 2, 2008.

Earlier, Aviva had completed the transfer of its 1,600-seater Chennai BPO from 24/7 Customer on January 1, 2007. It also took over the WNS-operated 300-seater facility in Sri Lanka in July 2007.