View this article online: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2004/02/11/36706.htm
Kinnect isn’t the only technology-based initiative making news around Lloyd’s (See previous article). Xchanging Ltd., its back office service provider and in independent company, is expanding its presence in the insurance sector through the acquisition of the U.K.-based insurance technology services firm RebusIS.
Xchanging will acquire the RebusIS operation for an estimated £40 million ($75 million), backed by their mutual majority investor General Atlantic Partners (in which AIG has a substantial share). The company provides a range of BPO (business process outsourcing) services including document processing, computer services, and technology products to the insurance sector, and employs some 500 people across offices in the UK, USA, Bermuda, Malaysia, Thailand and India. Xchanging noted that following the deal it will become a $360 million business, employing some 1,800 people in the UK, USA, Bermuda, continental Europe, India, Malaysia and Thailand.
Xchanging has already established itself as a leading provider of BPO services. It signed a 10-year agreement with BAE Systems in October 2001. Shortly thereafter it entered a partnership agreement with Lloyd’s to provide policy, premium and claims administration and clearing services. In February 2003 it signed a £250 million ($465 million) contract with travel company Novar, in which it handles all of Novar’s travel arrangements, transport fleet, contract labor and telecommunications.
The bulletin noted, however, that, as it failed to secure anything on this scale since the Novar contract, it had abandoned plans to raise as much as $1 billion through an initial public offering in 2002, which would have helped the company continue building large scale BPO deals.
Since then Xchanging has shifted its focus to concentrate on the insurance sector to establish its technology and back office processing credentials.