AZB, Khaitan advise on Tech Mahindras acquisition of Hutchison Global Services for 87 million

IT services provider Tech Mahindra has acquired 100 per cent stake in Hutchison Global Services (HGS), the back office captive unit owned by Hutchison, for $87.1 million (Rs.487 crore), in an all-cash transaction..AZB & Partners advised Tech Mahindra with a team led by Partner Abhijit Joshi..Khaitan & Co advised HGS with a team led by Partners Haigreve Khaitan and Vaishali Sharma. Direct Tax Executive Director Daksha Baxi assited the team on direct tax related issues..According to VCCircle, clients of HGS have committed to procure services worth $845 million from the firm over a five-year period as it will be their exclusive provider of certain agreed services in India..HGS, with an associate base of over 11,500 employees, provides customer lifecycle operations to clients in the UK. It operates out of Mumbai and Pune, and is among the largest captives in the telecom domain..The acquisition will provide significant enhancement of Tech Mahindra’s expertise in the customer management space and will thus be a key component of its strategic plans going forward. In addition, the acquisition will enable Tech Mahindra to leverage the acquired capabilities and scale for expanding the scope of its existing services to other parts of the Hutchison group, and also to other customers and verticals.ET reports, UK-based Serco was also in the contention to buy Hutchison Global Services but the two were unable to reach an agreement over potential liabilities arising from tax demands and the final valuation.