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Acorn aquires £2.5M specialist health care recruiter
Acorn, Wales’s largest recruitment and training company, has completed the acquisition of LINK, a specialist s forensic mental health care business that has been based in Newport, South Wales, for the last three years.
LINK, which reported a £2.5m turnover in the last financial year, will supplement Acorn’s existing Nursing & Healthcare Division. The acquisition is part of Acorn’s strategy of increasing annual revenues to more than £100m during the next five years.
LINK has traditionally supplied specialist healthcare staff, particularly forensic healthcare staff attached to HM Prisons in South Wales, the South West and Gloucestershire. It was established in June, 2003 jointly by Helen Kift, a former nursing sister who subsequently went into healthcare management and recruitment.
As a result of the acquisition, Helen Kift, has joined Acorn to manage the expanded Nursing & Healthcare Division.
The business has also been boosted by the appointment of senior consultant Wendy Keating, who has moved to Acorn after several years in the permanent healthcare recruitment sector in the South East, where she specialised in recruiting EU nationals.
The pair will be based at Acorn’s Somerton House headquarters in Newport.
“The opportunity to take the business under the Acorn umbrella is very exciting,” Helen Kift said. “Acorn has a UK-wide reputation as a dynamic industry leader and its resources will help us develop our business across a much larger geographic area.”
She added, “Nursing and healthcare has huge demand for staff, largely because of the increasing need for domiciliary care, growth in the private care sector and the on-going requirements of the NHS and associated government bodies such as HM Prisons. Acorn is now very well placed to serve this market.”
Acorn Managing Director Matt Southall said Acorn had been impressed by the quality of the LINK. “Our aim is to grow organically and by acquisition, but by selecting only the very best businesses in the industry such as LINK.”
Last month Acorn launched a new HR division, by recruiting EADS HR Director Pat Kiely to head the service. Southall added, “It has been launched in response to the increasing number of companies and organisations that are seeking specialist HR support. Some want to outsource the majority of their HR operations, others require a bolt-on to their existing department.
“In Pat Kiely, we have one of the UK’s foremost HR professionals who will use his experience and expertise to grow the division in the years ahead.”
Acorn reported a turnover of almost £40m in 2004/05 and earlier this year entered into a long-term partnership with leading European recruitment company Synergie of France to increases sales to £100m by 2009.
Caption: Wendy Keating and Helen Kift of Acorn’s Nursing & Healthcare division.
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