The Hindu Business Line : EXL plans 1,000-seat facility in Noida

"The centre is expected to be operational in 30 days. It will give us capacity to service the existing and new clients, including the recent win from British Gas. We may also decide to move some of the work from our existing clients to the new centre," Mr Rohit Kapoor, President of EXL Sservice, told Business Line.

The company currently has three centres in Noida and a 200,000 sq. ft. facility in Pune. The four centres together house close to 5,000 employees.

In October, the company had secured a large contract for managing the back-office operations for British Gas, the largest supplier of residential gas and electricity in Britain.

The contract involves utilising 1,000 seats.

British Gas is the brand name for energy and energy-related services offered by Centrica Plc in the UK. The first operation, under the contract, is expected to go live in January 2006.

Mr Kapoor said that the company's proposed public offer in the US was "on track. We filed the registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and are putting in place the necessary ingredients for doing that.

For instance, one building block from organisational standpoint was the appointment of a full-time CFO in June this year.

In addition, as per the regulatory requirements, we have already appointed two independent directors and will shortly announce the third independent director."

He also said that the proposed public offer had been delayed also because the company wanted to focus on the new client wins.

"Besides this, the fourth quarter (October-December) timeframe is generally not the right time for IPOs, as the markets are not strong. We also needed to have the nine-month financials audited, which could have been an expensive proposition. We will look at doing the audit at the end of the current calendar 2005 and go for a public offer after that. Another internal requirement which is a prerequisite for the public offer is compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley."

Mr Kapoor, however, refused to commit a timeframe for the proposed listing, saying that the company's plans depended on future business conditions and market conditions, among others.