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Teleperformance USA, the Utah-based call center subsidiary of Teleperformance Group of Paris, said it reached an agreement to purchase the assets of AOL's call center in Ogden.
AOL said Wednesday that it intended to lay off 1,300 employees at its call centers in New Mexico and Arizona but it hoped to spare the jobs of 400 employees at its Ogden facility by selling the center rather than shutting it down.
Dominic Dato, chief executive of Teleperformance USA, said the acquisition makes sense for both companies. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
"We intend to leverage the Ogden facility to not only serve AOL subscribing members, but other clients as well," he said in a statement announcing the agreement.
The transaction is expected to close on Dec. 16, at which time Teleperformance will begin providing AOL with "call center outsourcing services" from the Ogden facility, Dato said.
The Ogden center opened in October 1995. At its peak it employed approximately 900 Utahns and provided support to AOL customers who were having trouble with their bills, online services or AOL software.
Teleperformance established its U.S. operations in Utah in 1993. AOL's Ogden facility will be its fourth call center in Utah. The addition of the 400 Ogden employees to its staff will increase the number of Teleperformance's Utah workers to approximately 2,700.
AOL announced in early August that it expected within six months to cut as many as 5,000 employees, or about 25 percent of its global workforce.
The restructuring is an attempt by Time Warner Inc.'s online arm to deal with a decline of Internet subscribers, many of whom are switching to rival cable and telephone companies for their broadband services.
AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham on Tuesday indicated that severance packages would be offered to any of AOL's 400 Ogden area employees who chose not to go to work for the company that intended to purchase the Ogden call center.
However, he said the terms of the severance package are not yet available.
Teleperformance USA currently operates 22 facilities across the country. Its parent operates 269 call centers in 42 countries and claims more than 60,000 employees.