BPO and CX service provider Foundever has reduced its debt burden by nearly $900 million. Shareholders are investing $225 million, and the two founders have left the board. The restructuring follows five years after Sitel's acquisition of Sykes in 2021.

 

Foundever, one of the largest players in the global customer contact market with 130.000 employees in over 45 countries, announced this on August 17. announcedThe restructuring comes as no surprise; analysts provided a new financial restructuring at the beginning of this year.

Laurent Uberti and Olivier Camino, who built the company from Groupe Acticall and later Sitel over more than thirty years, stepped down as group CEO and executive chairman respectively on July 31. An interim CEO has been appointed: Benoit Leclercq, Chair of the Strategy Committee since 2021. The Executive Board has engaged a search firm for a permanent successor.

Leclercq wants to accelerate the technology roadmap and implement a shift towards an agentic AI model. Foundever positions itself as people-first and AI-native, with agentic AI operations and data-driven transformation at its core.

Foundever Group SA is a private, non-listed Luxembourg company. The company originated from Sitel, a veteran in the CX outsourcing world, which acquired industry peer Sykes in 2021 for $2,2 billion. At that time, the combined company had approximately 160.000 employees in forty countries, with estimated revenue of about $4,3 billion for 2021.

The integration and rebranding to Foundever followed in March 2023. The company is actively investing in new locations, including in Berlin, but also in EgyptIn the Netherlands, Foundever has approximately 350 employees, spread across Almelo and Eindhoven.

(Ziptone/Erik Bouwer)

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