West Corp. - an American firm with annual sales of over US$820 million, and workforce of 24,000 in US, Europe and Asia - bought the facilities that were owned by Teleservices, a telemarketing firm that went belly-up in June this year.

"The company is expected to employ some 600-800 persons in new facilities established at Montego Bay...and Portmore," Jampro, the state-owned investment promotion agency announced in a press statement on Tuesday.

West Corporation will specialise in processing calls coming from outside, to its clients.

"The company will provide contract centre operations at both facilities, offering its clients inbound services to enhance their communications efforts," explained Jampro.

West Corporation was the largest customer of Teleservices Jamaica which was placed into receivership by the National Investment Bank of Jamaica (NIBJ).

An executive of Jampro, Julian Robinson said that the investment agency helped to organise the sale of the facilities to West Corporation.

Teleservices itself had shown early signs of being shaky from as far back as February 2002- less than a year after it began operating. Then it was forced to lay off 249 of its 825 employees.

Teleservices was set up in June 2001 at a time when technology minister, Philip Paulwell began aggressively courting information technology firms to come to Jamaica to provide 40,000 jobs. But millions of dollars have been lost in these ventures -- with Netserv (a telemarketing company) being the most spectacular and highly-publicised failure. The Government, with the National Investment Bank of Jamaica (NIBJ) as the vehicle, doled out more than $700 million in soft loans to NetServ. But the company was placed in receivership in December 2001 for a near J$180-million debt after it emerged that over $90 million was disbursed to it before proper due-diligence was done on its parent, the Miami-based NetServ Global, and its principal, Trinidadian Paul Pereira.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/Business/html/20031211T200000-0500_52941_OBS_CALL_CENTRES_TO_PROVIDE_____JOBS_IN_MOBAY__PORTMORE.asp