The acquisition includes the company's liabilities, according to the American firm.

The acquisition provides ACS and its clients with an additional 4,000 highly trained, English-speaking workforce based in Jamaica and St Lucia, capable of handling complex business functions from a location convenient to the Americas and Europe, the company said in a statement issued jointly with e-Services.

Customer care provider

"This acquisition secures ACS's position as a leading customer-care provider to the global market," said Tom Blodgett, executive vice-president and group president of ACS Business Process Solutions.

"The veteran management and talented employees of e-Services will continue to provide high quality service to e-Services' global customers."

ACS has also signalled that no jobs are at risk, saying no workforce restructuring is expected.

The company, whose revenues reached US$65 million over one year to February 2009, has some 1,600 clients on payroll and was in the process of expanding at acquisition.

Client-focused culture

"The client-focused culture at e-Services and ACS will ensure a smooth transition for all of our employees and our clients," said Casserly, president and CEO of e-Services.

"All e-Services employees will continue to provide the best-in-class services our customers expect, now that they are a part of ACS."

ACS has been in the customer-care industry for more than 20 years. With this acquisition, ACS will employ approximately 33,000 agents handling in excess of one million interactions every day from 122 customer-care centres around the world supporting customers in 20 languages, the Fortune 500 company said.

business@gleanerjm.com