Ibex shifts from nearshore to offshore
Ibex’s Jamaican operations recorded a reduction in several financial metrics as the Bermudan company redeployed some of its capacity from the Caribbean to its higher-earning South East Asian operations.
Ibex’s Jamaican operations saw a reduction in the number of delivery centres from four to two, with the number of workstations declining 37 per cent from 3,810 workstations to 2,405 workstations. No other nearshore market saw a change in its delivery centre count.
The Philippines gained another delivery centre to reach 10 locations and added 1,205 workstations to bring its total to 9,772 workstations. Pakistan also gained an additional delivery centre to bring its count to 11 locations, with 1,415 workstations added to bring its total to 5,473 workstations.
“We continued to geographically optimise our delivery centres during the current year which included the closure of two nearshore sites concurrent with the expansion into two new offshore sites, and an increase in headcount in our offshore regions by approximately 1,700 employees when compared to the prior year,” stated Ibex’s annual report.
Nearshore markets include Jamaica, Nicaragua and Honduras, while offshore markets includes Philippines, Pakistan and India. Ibex’s nearshore operations saw revenue rise six per cent to US$147.17 million for its June 2026 financial year (FY), but this was marginally above the US$143.59 million earned in the June 2024 FY.
The offshore operations grew revenue by 16 per cent to US$327.27 million and represented half of Ibex’s total revenue of US$644.08 million. This compares to the June 2024 FY where the offshore segment had US$244.83 million in revenue.
Ibex indicated that it recorded US$2 million in one-time costs associated with lease terminations, severance expenses and impairment losses. The lease terminations was associated with the redeployment of operations from nearshore markets to offshore markets.
The loss experienced on lease terminations was US$744,000 while the severance costs was US$1.24 million. The impairment losses included a US$0.9-million charge on prepaid assets and a US$0.2-million impairment loss on certain assets at specific delivery centres/locations. These costs were not specifically attributed to any single market.
Ibex reported that 8.9 per cent of its US$336.5 million in payroll and related costs in the June 2026 FY was incurred in Jamaican dollars (JMD). This translated to US$29.95 million or $4.68 billion JMD of employee-related costs.
That’s lower than the 12.3 per cent ratio or US$35.79 million cost reported in the June 2025 FY and 15.5 per cent ratio or US$42.53 million reported in the June 2024 FY.
Ibex paid 30.9 per cent of its payroll expenses in the Philippine pesos or US$103.98 million and 11.6 per cent of its payroll expenses in the Pakistani rupee or US$39.03 million. These payroll costs for these two markets have gone up since 2024 compared to the Jamaican market which has continued to see a shrinking payroll budget.
The value of Ibex’s property, plant and equipment (PP&E) in Jamaica declined 56 per cent over the year from US$5.45 million to US$2.41 million. That’s a 72 per cent haircut from the US$8.66-million balance reported in June 2024.
In prior years, Ibex did not segment the taxes paid nor provisions for income tax in its annual report filings. However, for the June 2026 FY, it disclosed this information to investors as it adopted a new accounting standard for the presentation of income taxes.
It revealed that Ibex’s Jamaican operations paid US$542,000 (J$84.63 million) in cash taxes to the Government of Jamaica for the June 2026 FY. This was just 4.67 per cent of the US$11.59 million paid in income taxes by the entire group, with the USA operations paying US$8.95 million to the tax authorities.
The report further highlighted that Ibex’s Jamaican business had a US$714,000 provision for income tax expense at the statutory 25 per cent tax rate and US$195,000 in other income tax provisions. However, the Jamaican business benefited from US$540,000 in tax holiday savings and US$145,000 in tax credits. These disclosures imply that the pre-tax earnings was US$2.86 million.
The reduction in the number of locations and overall payroll expenses follows a broader trend in the Jamaican BPO space which has lost 12,000 jobs between March 2024 to March 2026. The remaining 50,000 employees worked for the remaining 70 companies which spent US$780 million or 22 per cent less in the local economy.