Rethink Group accepts £2.5m investment from BGF

BGF has invested £2.5m in international recruitment and Talent Management (TM) specialist Rethink Group to help boost its TM offering through the acquisition of Consort Group, a TM and recruitment process outsourcing business, headquartered in London.

BGF invested in Rethink to facilitate this acquisition and anticipates further funding to support strategic acquisitions and organic growth in the company.

Rethink specialises in both traditional recruitment and TM services. The demand for TM and recruitment process outsourcing services is expected to outpace growth in the broader recruitment sector as customers increasingly seek longer-term, strategic relationships with their talent partners. Rethink is now ideally placed to gain market share as the sector continues to evolve.

Rethink works with large corporates including Skype and Admin Re.

The combined business is expected to generate revenues in excess of £130m in the year ending December 2015 and will employ over 200 people across the group.

The strategic acquisition of Consort, a complementary TM business, will significantly boost Rethink’s service offering in this growing market. Consort specialises in the financial services and retail sectors and the acquisition will extend Rethink’s TM expertise and enable it to provide Consort’s service offering to its client base, as well as offering its own established TM offering to Consort’s clients.

Further growth in Rethink is anticipated organically and through further selective acquisitions, a number of which have already been identified by the company and that BGF could finance in the future.

Rethink was founded in 2005 by the senior team of Best International Group, a recruitment business built to £130m turnover in 18 months and sold to Spring Group in 2003. Rethink floated on AIM in 2008 before delisting in 2014 to seek alternative forms of financing for growth. Rethink’s other significant acquisition was Irish and Singapore based Berkley Group, in 2011.

Rethink’s TM division has long-term relationships with major clients and offers a range of services including employer branding and attraction, talent pooling and management, on-boarding, performance management, managed services and recruitment process outsourcing solutions.

Its recruitment division focuses on the business & technology and life sciences & pharma sectors, servicing clients across the UK and Ireland and has international operations in Singapore, Dubai, Australia and the US.