PRESS RELEASE

Sundaram Finance BPO arm picks up majority stake in PMC SBS headcount doubles to 1600 people
Acquisition brings in ‘F5’ customers to SBS

Chennai, 4th July 2007: In a significant development, Sundaram Business Services Ltd., (SBS) the BPO arm of Sundaram Finance Ltd., has announced that it has picked up a majority stake in Chennai headquartered BPO company Professional Management Consultants (P) Ltd (PMC).

PMC specializes in the Banking and Financial Services (FS) vertical and has 800 employees working out of its BPO facilities in Chennai.

SBS focuses on ‘Non-Voice’ back office support services. SBS service offerings include high end accounting services, credit processing, deposit processing, employee administration and insurance related processing services.

Commenting on the acquisition, T.T. Srinivasaraghavan, Managing Director, Sundaram Finance Ltd., said, “This is in line with our stated intent of looking at inorganic growth to complement our existing capabilities and thus add value to the offerings of our BPO business. In PMC, we saw both a business and a cultural fit and this acquisition considerably strengthens SBS’ ability to offer services across the entire spectrum of the BFSI space.”

• SBS picks up majority stake in PMC
• BPO headcount doubles to 1600 people
• Adds 25000 sq ft BPO facilities in Chennai
• Acquisition brings 5 strategic customers to SBS including two F5 companies

With this stake, SBS’ headcount will double to 1600 professionals from its current 800 people. SBS will add 25000 sq. ft to its existing infrastructure in Chennai that will take its infrastructure presence to 75000 sq. ft. SBS also has a strategic presence in Mumbai and Delhi.

P.S. Raghavan, Executive Director and Head of SBS said, “We are beginning to see a lot of traction in the domestic BPO market. Over the last 6 months, SBS has almost doubled its BPO headcount. PMC’s proven credible delivery track record in the Banking and Financial Services BPO space with a marquee customer base including long term outsourcing relationships with two F5 clients and a strong employee base provides us the right thrust and impetus as we enter the next phase of growth at SBS.”

The acquisition brings to bear a strong management team with decades of specialist domain expertise in the FS space.

S. V. Krishnamurthy, President and CEO, PMC said, “SBS has based its platform on servicing the big domestic outsourcing market and its service offering has a strong grounding on ‘do what you know best’ philosophy. This marriage combines SBS’ strong presence in Insurance and Accounting outsourcing with PMC’s capabilities in the Banking and FS outsourcing space, specifically in credit card and retail loan processing, thus making the combined entity one of the strongest BPO players in the domestic market, specializing in the BFSI space.”

SBS has been able to successfully leverage its parent company’s understanding of customer insights for over 5 decades in the Indian Financial Services space and has established itself as a ‘domain expert’ in the domestic BPO market, with the ability to intuitively understand client’s operations and develop process improvements that drive their efficiency, thus creating a clear differentiator for itself in the BFSI outsourcing space.

Apart from BFSI, where its core strengths lie, SBS also offers services such as accounts payable and payroll outsourcing. In the payroll space, SBS has a number of clients and services over 8000 employees currently. In the accounts payable space, SBS currently handles well over 1 lakh transactions annually.

SBS’ ongoing offshore outsourcing engagement includes leading players in the Australian accounting and Superannuation space. On the domestic front, SBS has over 20 customers and with the stake in PMC, the company will now be able to significantly expand its customer base in India.

While SBS continues to expand its base in India, the company will also seek to aggressively target the overseas BPO market including Australia, where it has already established a strong presence in the Accounting and Superannuation Funds administration space.