KONECTA, the leading provider of Spanish-speaking Customer Experience (CX) BPO solutions, has reached an agreement with the Italian company COMDATA to create the sixth largest player in the attractive CX BPO market with close to €2 billion revenues and €300 million EBITDA.
This combination will create a true global champion with multilingual capabilities (more than 30 languages) and a global footprint to provide ‘best shoring’ to local, regional and global clients in a variety of end industries, such as financial and insurance, technology, telco, retail and e-commerce, utilities, industrial and healthcare.
The new Group will serve more than 500 large corporates across Europe and America with the local expertise of over 130,000 employees.
The Founder and Chairman of KONECTA, Jose María Pacheco, and the management teams of KONECTA and COMDATA have partnered with Intermediate Capital Group (ICG), led in Spain by Jaime Chocrón, to execute this strategic combination. The transaction marks another important step of the growth, diversification and internationalization strategy promoted by José María Pacheco.
The newly formed Group will be headquartered in Madrid (Spain) and chaired by Mr. José María Pacheco, President of KONECTA. Mr. Jesús Vidal Barrio, CEO of KONECTA, and Mr. Maxime Didier, CEO of COMDATA, will become Co-CEOs of the combined entity. The leadership team will implement a bold growth plan, able to capture both organic and inorganic growth opportunities, bringing the combined entity on an ambitious double-digit growth path, underpinned by end-to-end, omnichannel, tech-enabled solutions based on Big Data, AI, Digital Marketing and RPA.
The new Group will take advantage of its leadership position in Spain & LatAm, Italy and France to further deploy its commercial and operational capabilities in its core markets. Moreover, the Group will have strong capabilities to support US nearshore and global clients across Europe.
The combined entity will create a robust financial structure, which will drive the company’s future development, allowing it to pursue market consolidation objectives. The synergy between the experience and know-how of the two companies, their combined offerings and digital capabilities will benefit the new Group’s market-leading position, in terms of competencies, size and geographical areas served.
José María Pacheco, Chairman at KONECTA, declared: “One step forward in the execution of KONECTA’s growth journey”. “We are very excited to create a new global leader, perfectly positioned to seize opportunities in a very dynamic CX BPO market. KONECTA and COMDATA share a common vision on client service, sectorial expertise, innovation through technology and focus on sustainable growth. The company, which will maintain its entrepreneurial approach, will benefit from ICG’s partnership and expertise as it looks to accelerate its development and actively participate in market consolidation”.
Maxime Didier, Co-CEO of the new Group and Massimo Canturi, CEO of COMDATA Italy and member of the board of the new Group, said: “We are very excited with this new chapter. We are delighted to be working with Jose María and Jesús who have demonstrated incredible know-how with KONECTA. The COMDATA teams, whom we would like to thank, are also excited about the prospect of returning to the top of the league”.
The completion of the Transaction, which will be implemented through a newly created investment company, KronosNet, is expected by Q3 2022 following the approval of the competent regulatory authorities.
About Konecta:
Founded in 1999, KONECTA is the leading tech-enabled end-to-end CX BPO player in the Spanish-speaking markets having successfully grown and diversified from its early 2000s origins serving blue-chip companies on complex back-office and CX BPO services in growing markets.
Over the past years, KONECTA has successfully integrated different companies such as the Brazilian Uranet, and the Spanish Rockethall group reinforcing the company’s leadership in Artificial Intelligence, Digital Marketing and Big Data solutions.
In 2021, KONECTA delivered a turnover of €918 million.
Visit https://www.grupokonecta.com/
About Comdata:
COMDATA is a leading innovative global service provider in Customer Management BPO with 30 years’ experience. The company combines an international footprint with strong local expertise, with more than 50,000 passionate employees working in 30 languages across 4 continents and 21 countries.
Focusing on the needs and opportunities of each industry, COMDATA offers a full range of end-to-end customer management solutions (acquisition, retention, customer service, technical support, and credit collection). These are built on a portfolio of world-class services covering customer experience and process reengineering consulting, digital and cutting-edge technologies, and customer operations (front & back office). Headquartered in Milan, Comdata delivers global revenues of approximately €980 million with more than 670 clients, including some of the biggest names in telecom, energy, banking, automotive & mobility, retail and e-commerce.
Visit https://www.comdatagroup.com/
About ICG:
ICG provides flexible capital solutions to help companies develop and grow. We are a leading global alternative asset manager with over 30 years’ history, managing $71bn of assets and investing across the capital structure. We operate across four asset classes: Structured and Private Equity, Private Debt, Real Assets, and Credit.
We develop long-term relationships with our business partners to deliver value for shareholders, clients and employees, and use our position of influence to benefit the environment and society. We are committed to being a net-zero asset manager across our operations and relevant investments by 2040.
ICG is listed on the London Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: ICP). Further details are available at www.icgam.com.