Electrical and electronic goods manufacturer V-Guard Industries has wound up operations of its business process outsourcing company, Vintes Solutions. Meanwhile, it has forayed into property development business with Vintes Developers.

Launched in 2008, the rural BPO company has been operating from its two centers in Kerala- one in Changanassery in Kottayam district and another at Cherthala in Alappuzha district. Vintes has been mainly handling digitisation of books.

“We started off at a wrong time and during the slowdown, procurement of sufficient projects had become difficult. Vintes has been procuring work and further outsourcing it to the centers owned by charitable organisations. Paying service tax at each layer of outsourcing made the business unviable. So we wound up the operations of the BPO,” said Mithun Chittilappilly, executive director, V-Guard Industries.

Further, Vintes’ talks for a tie-up with a similar company, Ruralsource, also did not work out.

“After winding up the BPO business, Vintes has been lying as a shell company and now we have started property development,” he said.

“Initially, we will utilise our land bank, mostly in and around Kochi, for development, but later on join hands with land owners for subsequent projects,” said Chittilappilly.