Sykes Acquires ClearLink to Bolster Digital Platform

U.S. BPO firm Sykes Enterprises has acquired ClearLink and all its subsidiaries for a reported $207 million. The purchase helps the Tampa, Florida-based company expand its suite of service offerings and create more entry points to capture new clients.
The move is aimed to combine Sykes’ strength, customer care, with the ClearLink specialty of customer acquisition.
Founded in 2003, U.S.-based ClearLink is an inbound demand generation and sales conversion platforms serving numerous business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) clients across various industries and subsectors, including telecommunications, satellite television, home security, and insurance.
Sykes acquired ClearLink from Pamlico Capital, an investment firm in Charlotte, North Carolina, that acquired Clearlink in 2011.
With its two sales conversion facilities in Utah and a headcount of approximately 1,300, Clearlink has grown at a double-digit compound annual rate over the last four years, ending 2015 with a revenue base of approximately $123 million.
Sykes says ClearLink has a superior operating margin profile relative to the company’s corporate average margins. Pamilco claimed in a separate press release that under its ownership, the company launched its insurance division and doubled its revenue in a matter of years.
“The acquisition of ClearLink is an important step forward in our strategy to uniquely position Sykes to capitalize on the trends around the digital customer experience lifecycle, in particular the convergence of customer care and customer acquisition,” said Chuck Sykes, president and CEO of Sykes.
For Sykes, the acquisition drives differentiation and extends competitive advantage, enabling it to further capitalize on the trend toward vendor consolidation.
“Combining ClearLink’s digital marketing, demand generation, and sales conversion model with Sykes’ post-sales customer care and support capabilities will allow us to provide the market with a unique and differentiated global customer interaction management platform that more effectively engages digital consumers at every touch point in the customer lifecycle,” said Sykes.
The management team of ClearLink will remain in place even after the close of the transaction and will continue to oversee the day-to-day operations of the business.
Sykes was founded in North Carolina in 1977 and moved its headquarters to Tampa in 1993. It is one of the Tampa Bay area’s largest publicly traded companies, with revenue of $1.3 billion in 2014.
Sykes operates 67 call centers in 21 countries with more than 50,000 employees.