IBM To Sell CRM, BPO Business To Synnex Subsidiary For $505M

The sale will close in the coming months and will place IBM's CRM and BPO businesses under Concentrix Corporation, the global business services division of Synnex.

The deal expands the global delivery for both Concentrix and IBM for partners and solution providers and establishes Concentrix as a top 10 player in the CRM marketplace.

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Kevin Murai, president and CEO of Synnex, said that the purchase will allow his company to pursue client growth in the mid-size market as their partner base continues to consolidate through complementary technology and service offerings. Concentrix hopes to use the deal to grow its investments in technology over the past couple of months as well as create a more cost-efficient customer care process.

"Our clients are investing at an unprecedented rate, in order to engage with and service clients across multiple channels," said Lori Steele, general manager, IBM Global Process Services, in a prepared statement. "This partnership between IBM and Synnex will provide our clients with the innovation they have come to expect from IBM through our deep capabilities in advanced analytics, social business, cloud and smarter commerce, complemented by Concentrix' flexible and adaptive global customer care delivery network."

Synnex will pay $430 million in cash and $75 million in stock for the acquisition. The deal comes with a multiyear agreement in which Concentrix will become a preferred business partner of IBM for global customer care.

After the deal completes, Concentrix will grow to approximately 45,000 employees with more than 300 clients. Chris Caldwell, president of Concentrix, will lead the acquired business. Until the deal closes, the two companies will continue to operate independently.

"I am thrilled with the talent that will be coming over to Concentrix," said Caldwell in a prepared statement. "We have long been committed to delivering high quality, innovative CRM BPO services and this acquisition will significantly extend our portfolio and our delivery capabilities." Caldwell continued, "This is an important step in our continued growth by providing a unique aggregation of world-class customer engagement capabilities to our clients that we could only have acquired from IBM."

PUBLISHED SEPT. 10, 2013