In news reported Thursday (Jan. 25) by the Denver Business Journal, eCommerce giant Amazon has struck a deal with Colorado-based call center operator STARTEK to acquire as many as 4 million of the latter’s shares.
In addition, an eight-year deal between the two firms could mean payments of as much as $600 million to the Colorado firm. Details, said the publication, came from filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Under the terms of the deal, STARTEK has issued a warrant to Amazon subsidiary Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings to acquire the aforementioned shares. Exercise price will be $9.96 through Jan. 23 of 2026.
Trading in STARTEK closed at $13.55 on Thursday on news of the deal. The warrants will vest as based on Amazon’s payment of up to $600 million to STARTEK for commercial services from the company. More than 425,000 shares will be vested upon execution of the agreement, with the remainder to vest according to certain revenue thresholds spread out over the remainder of the agreement term.
Services to be provided were not defined in the agreement though the Denver Business Journal noted that the call center firm operates across the United States, Honduras, the Philippines and Canada. The firm operates within verticals as far-flung as retail and healthcare. Retail clients are about 11 percent of the top line, the publication noted.
STARTEK’s largest shareholders included Heartland Advisors Inc., with 1.1 million shares of the total 16 million shares outstanding, Dimensional Fund Advisors with a bit more than 900,000 and Blackrock Inc., which held 845,000.
News of the Amazon deal comes less than a week after the online retail giant announced it had picked metro Denver as a finalist for its proposed “HQ2” — the company’s second headquarters complex — along with 19 other cities and areas.
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