Momentum investors and analysts are paying close attention to ALJ Regional Holdings (OTCPK: ALJJ), an emerging B2B company that specialized in providing BPO solutions.

Over the last few years, ALJJ has conducted a series of strategic acquisitions that have considerably increased its market capitalization and succeeded in advancing shares from the OTC markets to the Nasdaq.

Since 2013, ALJJ has completed major acquisitions that have come to define the company's current structure. The move took place in October 2013 when the firm acquired Faneuil, a call center and BPO operation headquartered in Virginia.

In 2014, ALJJ entered into an agreement to purchase the assets of Floors-N-More, a provider of customer care solutions for the flooring industry.

ALJJ continued its string of acquisitions in 2015 as it took over Phoenix Color, a company that specializes in the lithographic printing of plastics, leather and more.

The Latest ALJJ Acquisition

ALJJ has matured to the point of attracting the attention of billionaire investor Ronald Perelman, who held three million shares of the company in early 2016; a stake that is equivalent to 10 percent.

Faneuil, the BPO and call center segment of ALJJ, recently announced its intention to acquire Vertex Business Services, a provider of cloud-based customer service solutions and analytics. Faneuil plans to incorporate all existing call center operations handled by Vertex, a company that is well established in the utilities sector.

For ALJJ, one of the most important elements of the Vertex acquisition consists of more than 500 customer care agents who specialize in servicing the accounts of gas, electric and water utilities across the United States.

Value investors should pay attention to the following two aspects of this acquisition:

1 - Outsourcing in the Trump era: Vertex has an advantage in the sense that its BPO services are mostly handled in the United States. Offshoring suffered from an image problem during the Great Recession because many Americans believed that call center jobs should stay in the U.S. during times of high unemployment. The current political sentiment of keeping jobs in the country is important across all sectors. In other words, outsourcing in definitely in; offshoring is not.

2 - ALJJ Consolidation: Faneuil will complete its Vertex acquisition at a time when American households are more in tune with matters related to energy efficiency and consumption, which has resulted in an increase of customer communications volumes. Utility customers are closely monitoring their energy and water consumption, and they are more likely to contact their providers with questions and concerns. Faneuil already offers BPO solutions to healthcare, residential contracting, transportation, and government sectors; adding utilities to its portfolio of clients certainly makes ALJJ a more powerful industry players.

Recent ALJJ Numbers Look Very Attractive

On its May 12 earnings call, ALJ posted a consolidated revenue of $79.3 million for the first quarter; this reflected an increase over the 2016 1Q revenue of $66.3 million as well as over the final quarter of 2016, which posted revenue figures of $77.6 million.

In terms of EBITDA, the company's $7.7 million figure signifies an improvement of nearly one million on an annual basis and half a million on a quarterly basis.

In conclusion, the continued pace of strategic acquisitions combined with recent earnings and overall outlook makes ALJJ an attractive buying opportunity for momentum traders as well as value investors seeking long-term growth.