Mumbai: The embattled Essar group on Monday announced the closure of the sale of its BPO arm Aegis for Rs 2,000 crore and said it had been able to pare debt by Rs 75,000 crore, thanks to the recent sale of its refinery business.

The company had sold Aegis to Capital Square Partners (CSP), marking its exit from the business process outsourcing (BPO) business.

Earlier, it had concluded a $13-billion deal to sell its oil business to Russia's Rosneft.

A July media report had estimated the total debt of the group at Rs 1.38 lakh crore.

Some reports had said the Rosneft deal alone would have helped it to pare debt by Rs 70,000 crore.

However, it was not immediately clear by how much the group's debt level will come down to.

The diversified conglomerate has been selling assets to pare its high debt, which has seen it exiting the oil business and also sell realty holdings, apart from Aegis, the BPO arm.

"The net proceeds from this sale (of Aegis)...will be used to retire our debt at the group level," Essar said in a statement.

"The closure of this transaction is in line with Essar's intent to reduce leverage that is complemented by an asset monetisation programme. The proceeds from the sale of Aegis and Essar Oil have enabled Essar to retire almost Rs 75,000 crore of debt," it added.

The Aegis sale was announced on April 3 this year and involved AGC Holdings Mauritius, a wholly owned portfolio company of Essar Global, selling 100 per cent stake in ESM Holdings Mauritius, the holding company of Aegis, to CSP, a Singapore-based private equity fund.

The statement said Essar had acquired Aegis Communication in 2003 and it has now grown over ten-fold to become a significant player in the outsourcing industry.

Aegis is present in nine countries - India, South Africa, Australia, Saudi Arabia, England, Argentina, Sri Lanka, Peru and Malaysia. Under Essar, it carried out 19 acquisitions.

"The closure of this transaction is yet another validation of Essar Global Fund's commitment to reduce its leverage by monetising the non-core businesses," Uday Gujadhur, director of AGC Holding, said in the statement.

"We are keenly looking forward to working with the Aegis management team to grow its global footprint and enhance its capabilities and excellence in service to its customers," CSP managing partners Sanjay Chakrabarty and Mukesh Sharda said in a joint statement. PTI