Ardian exits CCC to Telus

Harriet Matthews
05 December 2019

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Ardian has sold Competence Call Centre (CCC) to Telus International, a subsidiary of listed Canadian national telecommunications company Telus Corporation, via an auction process.

In a statement, Telus said that it bought CCC for an enterprise value of €915m.

CCC was marketed based on EBITDA of €75m and a valuation of more than €700m, according to Unquote sister publication Mergermarket.

In October 2019, Mergermarket reported that contenders in the auction process for CCC included GPs Bridgepoint and Montagu, as well as corporate players including Arvato.

During the investment period, Ardian said that it increased the company's headcount by more than 3,000 to 8,500 and opened four new sites.

Previous funding
Ardian bought CCC from Silverfleet in November 2017, drawing equity from Ardian Expansion Fund IV. According to Debtwire, Blackrock, Tikehau and Bank of Ireland provided a debt package of around €110m to finance the deal. CCC's 2017 EBITDA was €21m.

Ardian (then Axa Private Equity) had previously acquired approximately two thirds of CCC from founding CEO Thomas Kloibhofer in 2009, before selling to Silverfleet in an SBO in December 2013.

Company
CCC provides business process outsourcing services, including moderating social media content, up/cross selling, complaint management and technical support. CCC's client base includes telecommunications providers, travel companies and other B2C companies.

The company was founded in Vienna in 1998, and is now headquartered in Berlin. Its services cover 33 languages and it has sites in 11 countries.

People
CCC – Christian Legal (CEO).

Advisers
Equity – Deloitte, Egon Sachsalber, Tanya Fehr (financial due diligence); McKinsey, Julian Raabe, Tobias Eichner (commercial due diligence); Latham & Watkins, Burc Hesse, Sebastian Pauls (legal); Milbank, Michael Bernhardt (legal); EY, Niclas Hahn (tax); William Blair, Philipp Mohr (M&A).
Acquirer – Shearman & Sterling, Scott Petepiece, Thomas König, Alfred Kossmann, Andreas Piepers, Aliresa Fatemi, Evelin Moini, Denise Tayler (legal).