After 20 years building and growing recruitment specialist Passionate About People to over £103 million in turnover delivering 28% NFI to EBITDA margin, the founding shareholders decided it was time to sell the business and thereby open up the next exciting chapter for everyone.
Having spent time getting to know the senior management team at Passionate About People, we were delighted to be instructed formally towards the end of 2017. We worked with the shareholders to determine the best strategy to deliver the maximum value on exit and designed a process accordingly. It was clear that the mix of engineering services, recruitment and RPO would not be easily digested by all. However, significant strategic value resided in each business for the correct buyer. Our job was to work with the team to find the best potential buyers for each element and structure the transaction in a tax efficient way to maximise net returns to shareholders.
Omega Engineering Services (‘OES’) was first sold to Belcan LLC, a US based buyer with interests in aerospace engineering services across the globe, who saw significant value in the OES customer base. Latterly, Omega Recruitment Group (‘ORG’) and Datum RPO (‘Datum’) were sold to Staffline Group Plc who saw value in the high quality recruitment business of ORG and significant growth opportunities in the neutral vendor solution that had been built at Datum.
The transaction delivered both value and an exit for the Passionate About People founders, all of whom were delighted to reach the end of a 20 year journey on a high.
