Scottish call centre BeCogent has been sold to French rival Teleperformance for £35 million. The deal sees the founder Dermot Jenkinson pocket a £10 million windfall. BeCogent operates call centres for major consumer brands including Sainsbury’s, Virgin Media and John Lewis Direct and has a workforce of 2,000 employees in Scotland. A further 1,000 workers are based in smaller centres in Glasgow, Erskine and Kilmarnock. Other major shareholders will also benefit from the sale of the £40 million turnover business, including the Marquis of Linlithgow and the Duke of Roxburghe. The shareholders who supported Jenkinson in the establishment of the company in 1999 can expect to enjoy an eightfold return on their investments. Teleperformance UK’s chief executive and chairman Jeff Smith said: “We plan to use the combined strength of BeCogent and Teleperformance Group to develop yet more strongly our UK presence, taking advantage of our incomparable strength across both our onshore and offshore networks.” Teleperformance has 276 call centres across 51 countries with a total of 112,000 staff manning them. It is anticipated that the deal will make the combined business the second largest operator of outsourced call centres in Britain.
