Phone giant hikes stake in BPO firm

The technology unit of network giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) has upped its stake in a business process outsourcing (BPO) firm that specializes in high value back office services.

In a disclosure, PLDT said wholly-owned unit ePLDT Inc. had agreed to buy out its partner Quantium Solutions International Pte. Ltd. (QSI) in ePDS Inc.

The PLDT subsidiary currently owns 50 percent of ePDS Inc., while QSI and DataPost Pte. Ltd. own 20 percent and 30 percent, respectively.

The BPO specializes in data formatting and printing, automated intelligent mail processing, manual letter-shopping, data archiving and document management solutions.

Under the deed of sale signed on Wednesday, ePLDT will acquire about 17 of QSI’s stake in ePDS.  QSI would sell its remaining 3 percent stake in the BPO firm to DataPost.

“The completion of the purchase transactions is expected to take place in the third quarter of 2011,” PLDT corporate secretary Lourdes Rausa-Chan said in a disclosure.

“Upon completion, QSI will cease to be a shareholder of (ePDS Inc.),” said ePLDT, which in turn will end up with a 67-percent stake in the BPO firm. DataPost will hold the balance of 33 percent.

Officially set up in June 2003, ePDS unified the expertise of these three companies in IT, printing and mail enveloping outsourcing services and mail distribution to gain a superior position in providing total customer communication solutions.

ePLDT, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), is the principal corporate vehicle of the PLDT Group’s information and communications technology (ICT) assets and investments, focused on enabling ICT infrastructure services which would drive Internet applications, IP-based services and multimedia content delivery to consumers and business worldwide.

In the meantime, DataPost Pte. Ltd. is a subsidiary of Singapore’s SingPost, the largest postal service provider in Asia.   Paolo G. Montecillo