Tampa firm strikes $207M acquisition

TAMPA — Sykes Enterprises Inc. acquired Utah-based Clear Link Holdings LLC and its subsidiaries for $207 million.

The acquisition will help Sykes, a customer management outsourcing firm, expand its services to consumers, says Chuck Sykes, the company's president and CEO, in a statement.

The statement lists the following as the “strategic rationale” for the acquisition:
• Drives differentiation and extends competitive advantage;
• Expands Sykes' suite of service offerings;
• Broadens the addressable market opportunity;
• Creates more entry points to capture new clients.

“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,” Sykes says in the statement.

Clearlink ended 2015 with 1,300 employees and posted $123 million in revenue, the statement says. Sykes (symbol: SYKE; recent price: $28.08) posted $1.29 billion in revenue in 2015.