Call center software maker Interactive Intelligence explores sale: sources
(Reuters) - Interactive Intelligence Group Inc, a U.S. provider of software and services for call center operators, is exploring strategic alternatives, including a potential sale, according to people familiar with the matter.
A sale of Interactive Intelligence would be the latest sign of the consolidation sweeping the telecommunications software and equipment industry, as rapid technological scale and fierce competition forces companies to seek more scale.
Interactive Intelligence is working with boutique investment bank Union Square Advisors LLC on a sale process that has attracted other telecommunications software companies, as well as private equity firms, the people said this week.
The sources cautioned that no deal is certain and asked not to be identified because the sale process is confidential. Union Square Advisors and Interactive Intelligence did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Shares of Interactive Intelligence rose as much as 12 percent after Reuters reported on the sale process, giving the company a market capitalization of $1.1 billion.
Based in Indianapolis, Interactive Intelligence helps call centers operators develop applications that help them analyze data and improve customer service calls.
Interactive Intelligence swung to a net loss of $13.2 million in the first quarter of 2016, compared with a loss of $3.46 million a year earlier. The company has said that it has posted operating losses in recent quarters while it shifts its business model to the cloud.
In May, Israel's NICE said it would buy inContact Inc for $940 million. Private equity firm Hellman & Friedman LLC invested earlier this month in contact center company Genesys in a deal that valued the company at $3.8 billion.
Not all companies in this fast-changing sector have been successful, however. Private equity-backed Avaya Inc, which owns a sizable contact center business, has also hired advisers to explore a sale or restructuring in order to deal with its debt burden, Reuters has reported.
(Reporting by Liana B. Baker in San Francisco and Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
© Copyright Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved. The information contained in this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of Reuters Ltd.
