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ICICI Bank in pact with GTL for leasing out BPO unit

Thomas K Thomas

Will get access to a ready-made, fully furnished call centre


Recurring cash flow
A 36,000 sq ft facility is likely to be leased to Spanco Tele Systems
The deals with ICICI Bank and Spanco are expected to get GTL a revenue of over Rs 260 crore

New Delhi June 19 ICICI Bank has entered into an agreement with networking solutions provider GTL Ltd to lease out its call centre facility at Mahape for a period of 25 years.

The infrastructure-leasing agreement is valued at around Rs 100 crore and is expected to be formally announced on Wednesday.

While ICICI Bank will get access to a ready-made, fully furnished call centre spread over 1,20,000 sq ft, the deal is expected to provide recurring cash inflow to GTL, to the tune of Rs 5 crore per year. The facility has training facilities, amphitheatre, theme-based food courts and entertainment and games facilities.

The facility has also provision for boarding arrangements that can house agents during calamities.

More equipped

The unit is also equipped with data centres, access to international telecom carriers for connecting on redundant fibre routes, power back up facilities for uninterrupted availability.

GTL had earlier said that it was hiving off its non-telecom businesses including the IT services division and BPOs. While the IT services division is likely to be bought out by France Telecom for about Rs 350 crore, GTL is in talks with other banks and ITeS firms for leasing out its BPO unit.

Apart from the one in Mahape, GTL has five more call centre units.

According to sources, one of these, a 36,000 sq ft facility is likely to be leased to the Mumbai-based Spanco Tele Systems, fetching an additional Rs 3.8 crore per annum, taking the total annual cash inflow to Rs 8.8 crore, without incurring any additional expenditure.

The deals with ICICI Bank and Spanco are expected to get GTL a revenue of over Rs 260 crore.

The company is also looking to invest nearly Rs 1,000 crore on acquisitions in the telecom networking space.

Commenting on the deal with ICICI Bank, the GTL spokesperson said, "we had stated that we will be putting our unused and under-utilised assets to use, and hence are planning to lease the assets out, but cannot comment on the specifics of the current deal".

GTL has recently undergone restructuring and is now purely focused on offering network services to telecom carriers and technology providers (OEMs).

Cellular towers

It plans to set up nearly 6,000 cellular towers across the country, which will be leased out to mobile companies.

The company is currently operating in over 25 countries, has enabled over 35 cellular networks and 20,000 cell sites, connected over 20 million subscribers and has set-up more than 500 corporate networks.

More Stories on : Outsourcing | Private Banks | ICICI Bank Ltd | Software

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