FourstaR acquired by Staffline in £3m deal

SOLIHULL-based recruitment firm FourstaR Employment and Skills has been bought out by Nottingham outsourcing organisation Staffline in a £3m deal.

FourstaR has been acquired from the Dutch company Fourstar Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lern Holding B.V, a company registered in the Netherlands.

The deal was done through Staffline’s existing cash resources, it said, and was expected to generate around £90m of revenue over the next five years.

It would be earnings neutral in the first full year of ownership and earnings enhancing thereafter, a company statement added.

FourstaR currently employs 170 people in the Birmingham and Solihull area and has three specialist employment and training centres in Aston, King’s Norton and Garretts Green, with a fourth due to be added in July.

These will be used as part of the Department for Work and Pensions’ new ‘Work Programme’, for which FourStar was named as a preferred bidder earlier this month.

Staffline said it would sit autonomously alongside FoustaR’s other core expertise of national outsourced job placement and its board, which includes Birmingham businessman John Crabtree, expected the deal to act as a springboard for participation in other similar Government initiatives.

Staffline currently has offices in Coventry, Dudley, Stoke and Telford.

Chairman and chief executive Andy Hogarth said: “I am very pleased to announce this new acquisition, one which marks an evolution in the Staffline business model and provides good visibility in earnings for the group.

“FourstaR will sit well alongside our existing core services of outsourcing and training and will provide further diversification to Staffline’s business.”