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Friday, March 29, 2024

CVC plans to sell stake in SPi Global

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By Joyce Koh and Jonathan Browning

CVC Capital Partners, Europe’s largest private-equity firm, is exploring a sale of its controlling stake in Philippine outsourcing provider SPi Global Holdings Inc., people with knowledge of the matter said. 

The buyout firm is working with Bank of America Corp. to gauge interest in the 80-percent holding it acquired from Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. in 2013, according to the people. A deal could value SPi Global at about $500 million, two of the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private.

Manuel Pangilinan

CVC has participated in about $1.5 billion of Southeast Asia deals over the past five years, including the saleof its stake in Singapore’s Interplex Holdings Ltd. to Baring Private Equity Asia last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. There were $6.5 billion of private-equity deals involving Southeast Asian targets last year, down from $8.6 billion in 2014, the data show.

Philippine Long Distance, which owns the remaining 20 percent of SPi Global, intends to “tag along” with any  potential sale by CVC, chairman Manuel Pangilinan said Tuesday in a mobile-phone text message. The country’s biggest phone company will make a decision depending on the price and terms, Pangilinan said.

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The process is at an early stage, and details such as valuation could change, the people said. A London-based representative for CVC didn’t immediately respond to a phone call seeking comment outside regular business hours.

Philippine Long Distance sold control of SPi Global to CVC for more than $300 million in 2013. Manila-based SPi Global has annual revenue of about $214 million, according to CVC’s Web site. It employs more than 20,000 workers in the  Philippines, India, the US, China, Vietnam and Nicaragua serving customers in the US and Europe.

The company,  led by chief executive officer Maulik Parekh, has helped German academic publisher Springer Science & Business Media GmbH digitize 70,000 books dating back to the 1840s,  SPi’s Web site shows. It also runs the call center for Singapore Airlines Ltd.’s low-cost carrier, Scoot Pte.

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