Covisian, the Italian leader in business process outsourcing services and innovative customer care solutions, controlled by Aksìa Capital IV Fund managed by Aksìa Group sgr, bought Spain’s Grupo GSS, specialized in customer management services (see the press release here).
The acquisition of GSS was financed by a pool of banks comprising Crédit Agricole Italia (which also acted as agent bank), Bnl-Bnp Paribas and Banco Bpm, assisted by the Dentons Law Firm. In the transaction, Covisian was supported by the law firms Garrigues of Madrid, Accinni Cartolano and Associates of Milan and De Luca & Partners of Milan, and by EY Transaction Advisory Services and Tax Italy, Spain and Peru. Grupo GSS was assisted by advisors KFinance-Clairfield International and Lincoln International, EY TAS Spain and Peru and the law firm Simmons & Simmons.
GSS is a Spanish customer service company, active for over 25 years. It has about 7,700 employees and is present in Spain (Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Zaragoza, La Coruña, Badajoz), in 7 countries in Latin America and the Usa.
Covisian, chaired by Antonio Turroni, closed 2018 with a turnover of 180 million euros . Thanks to the acquisition of GSS, Covisian’s turnover rises to around 300 million euros, generated by over 14 thousand people in 2 continents and 12 countries. Covisian had closed 2017 with 91.7 million euros of net revenues, 5.4 million of ebitda and 15.5 million of net financial debt (see here the analysis of Leanus, after registering for free).
The company is growing fast with acquisitions. GSS is just the latest in a series. Covisian, in fact, in April 2018 bought RBS-Retail banking Services srl, a company specialized in customer management for financial services with offices in Rome and Milan (see here a previous post by BeBeez). In November 2017, Covisian acquired 88% of Vivocha, an Italian company specializing in digital systems for CRM, taking over from the Canadian group Enghouse and the funds of Principia sgr and Vertis sgr, which in September 2012 had capitalized the startup (see here a previous post by BeBeez). In November 2016, Covisian had instead bought the entire capital of the CSS spa recovery company, with the managing director of CSS, Gianni Amprino, who had reinvested in Covisian, keeping the CSS guide in the role of ceo (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Finally, in July 2016, Italiaonline sold the directory assistance 1254 business to Covisian (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Covisian also bought Telesurvey, which in turn specializes in CRM.
But Covisian does not intend to stop here. “We are evaluating other acquisitions, especially abroad, and not only in the field of BPO in the strict sense. For years Covisian has invested in innovation and development of proprietary tools and methodologies that today, for many aspects, are unique in the world.We think that this first international operation is a first important step to enhance those investments and to develop on a large scale the competitive advantages that they enable “, Aksìa’s partner Marco Rayneri said.
Covisian is the second operator in Italy of business process outsourcing (BPO), which has 4,500 workstations, 6,400 employees in 17 offices and over 50 customers. The group was created on the initiative of Aksìa, which at the end of 2015 acquired and brought under a single holding the companies Contacta and Visiant Contact (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
Covisian serves the main operators in the financial services, energy, digital, retail, media and telecommunications sectors. The Group has been investing for years in the development and improvement of Sparta, a proprietary system and operating model that, thanks to sophisticated planning algorithms, allows to maximize effectiveness and quality, allowing to achieve excellence in the services offered. This technology has evolved and today, alongside Sparta, Sparta AI was born, offering customers new partnership models based on artificial intelligence and long-term value generation. Completing the offer of Covisian’s innovative services: Vivocha’s digital customer interaction & engagement solutions, which allow you to communicate and collaborate with current and prospective customers on all channels and devices; hybrid services of digital + human lead generation and conversion; the Covisian Customer Management Academy customer management school, in collaboration with the MIP of the Milan Polytechnic. In May 2017 Covisian was admitted to the Elite program of Borsa Italiana.
