Telus buys out the rest of Cork business Voxpro following 2017 acquisition

4 Dec 2019

Inside Voxpro’s Dublin office. Image: Voxpro

Telus is buying the remainder of Cork’s Voxpro after acquiring a majority stake in 2017, while CEO Dan Kiely is stepping down from his role.

This week, it emerged that Canadian telecoms giant Telus has purchased the remainder of Cork-headquartered outsourcing company Voxpro.

In August 2017, Telus acquired a 55pc stake in the company, which then operated as ‘Voxpro – powered by Telus International’. According to the Irish Times, Telus paid $58m for the majority stake two years ago, with an option to acquire the rest of the company in a deal worth up to $150m.

Voxpro was first launched in Cork around two decades ago, starting as a paging company with just six employees. Founded by husband and wife team Dan and Linda Kiely, the business became a major multilingual customer service and technical support provider.

Voxpro has gone on to open offices in Dublin, Sacramento, San Francisco and Bucharest, with an estimated workforce of 6,000. Some of the company’s clients include Airbnb and Google.

The next phase of evolution

On Monday, employees of the company were informed that Telus had bought the remainder of Voxpro and that Dan Kiely would be stepping down as CEO.

“These are really exciting times for Voxpro and Telus International as we continue to grow and transform our operations globally,” Kiely said.

“This is very much a natural progression of our integration into the Telus International family and both Linda and I feel that this is the right time to move on to the next phase in our collective evolution.”

Earlier this year, it was reported that Voxpro considered launching an IPO, but it is not yet clear what Telus plans for the business.

“Sharing knowledge, resources and ideas across our organisations has proven to be extremely successful over the years and we have achieved amazing things that would not have been possible on our own,” Kiely added.

“We have created partnerships that were previously inaccessible and expanded into all corners of the globe. Linda and I are so proud of our Voxpro family. The way our teams have embraced change as part of integration has been incredible.

“We have loved every minute of watching our business grow and we cannot express our appreciation enough to everyone at Voxpro for all of their hard work efforts over the years.”

Kelly Earley was a journalist with Silicon Republic

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