West to be acquired by private investors.

West Corp. has announced that it has entered a definitive agreement to be acquired by a group of private investors led by Thomas H. Lee Partners and Quadrangle Group. The deal is reported to be worth $4.1 billion. Under the agreement, the investors would pay $48.75 per share in cash to stockholders of West Corp. Founders Gary and Mary West are not included in this list of stockholders. The couple own approximately 56 percent of the company's outstanding stock, 85 percent of which would be purchased at $42.83 per share in cash. The remaining shares are expected to be converted into stock of the new corporation upon completion of the merger.

West Corporation's board of directors, on the recommendation of a special committee of independent directors, has approved the merger agreement and recommends that West's stockholders adopt the agreement. Gary and Mary West have agreed under certain circumstances to vote their shares in favor of the transaction. Thomas B. Barker, CEO of West Corporation, has stated that in addition to providing West's public stockholders a premium for their shares, the company believes the transaction is also in the best interest of the company's employees and customers.

In other West news, West Interactive has introduced Insight Customer Intelligence, a network-based, real-time automated customer survey tool designed to measure the quality of customer interactions and improve customer retention. Using West's interactive voice response (IVR) infrastructure, Insight gives customers the choice to participate in a brief survey immediately following their interaction with the customer service agent. With Insight, contact center management and operations can access customer feedback in near real-time through a Web-based portal that integrates the customer's satisfaction rating, including spoken comments, with a 100 percent recording of the actual agent call. The survey is controlled by the caller and is anonymous to the agent. Based on the customer's satisfaction score, Insight can also dynamically request if the customer would like a callback or be transferred for immediate assistance.

www.west.com and www.westinteractive.com

By Tracey E. Schelmetic, Editorial Director, Customer Inter@ction Solutions