LEWISTON – A $4 billion publicly traded Texas company has bought LiveBridge, an international telemarketing company that has 450 employees at Lewiston’s Bates Mill.
Company officials said Friday it will mean no changes for the Lewiston operation in the short term, and hinted that growth could be in the forecast. Outsourcing giant Affiliated Computer Services Inc. purchased LiveBridge for $32 million.
ACS officials said the company would fold LiveBridge’s 3,000 employees into its staff of 50,000. The local LiveBridge call center opened in 1998 with 70 employees. Calls placed to the Lewiston office were referred to LiveBridge’s corporate headquarters in Oregon, but one local employee said the purchase is good news. The sale expands ACS’ customer service and back-office capabilities, as well as its global telemarketing assets. LiveBridge has call centers in Argentina, India and Canada, and the United States.
“The overall market for customer care services is expected to grow significantly over the next several years,” said ACS official Lynn Blodgett in a release. It expects revenues of $106 million this year.
LiveBridge started 17 years ago as Telemark Inc. By 1994 it posted revenues of $12.5 million, growing to more than $87 million in 2002. It dropped back to $73 million in 2003 when it changed its business model to handle almost exclusively in-bound calls and expanded its international call centers.
LiveBridge CEO Pat Hanlin said he expects the sale will mean more hiring as ACS grows to accommodate more business. ACS’ main call center markets are government and health care, while LiveBridge’s clients have been mostly financial services and telecommunications. LiveBridge leases about 13,000 square feet at Bates Mill No. 2.
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