New partner for Concept

Leading recruitment and training agency Acorn, whose UK operation includes South West recruiter Concept Staffing, has announced the purchase of national technical recruiter Oracle Global Resourcing.

With its head office based in London, the Oracle business, which will now trade under the name of Exxell, contributes £14m of additional revenue to the Acorn Group.

Exxell provides Acorn and Concept Staffing, which has its headquarters in Barnstaple and offices throughout the South West, with a strong presence in the South East of England. It also extends Acorn's national coverage in providing technical recruitment and employment across specialist sectors, such as engineering, rail, facilities management and construction.

Formerly known as Oracle and founded in 2004, Exxell has a staff of 25 supplying more than 400 temporary staff each week to businesses across the South East region as well as other parts of the UK. Clients include EDF Energy, Bailey Maintenance, Westinghouse, Alfred McAlpine and Network Rail.

This latest acquisition puts Acorn within touching distance of its strategy goal of achieving a turnover of £100m by the end of 2009 - and is a further sign of the company's ability to succeed by growing and developing in what has been a highly challenging environment for the recruitment industry.

It follows the addition to the Acorn portfolio in 2007 of both Concept Staffing, the largest recruitment company in the West Country with 16 offices across the region, and Crewe-based Advance Personnel.

The combined Acorn Group will see it deliver at peak up to 6,000 temps into about 850 different client companies each week, as well as delivering training to more than 3,000 learners and placing some 1,700 permanent placements each year through its 34 branches and numerous on-site locations across the UK.

Matt Southall, founder and Managing Director of Acorn, said: "The incorporation of Exxell into the Acorn Group brings a further £14m revenues to our business and, as well as bolstering some of our sector expertise and client portfolio quite considerably, also extends our locations to include London and Woking.

"This comes at a good time for the Acorn Group. Over the last two to three months we have bucked the general trend in our sector and seen improvement in our overall performance and profitability.

"This new addition helps to underline to our existing and prospective clients, that despite the knock-backs resulting from the recent state of the economy, we are still very much intent on growing and developing into a major player right across the UK.

"The move fully underlines these intentions and continues to help position Acorn externally as a dynamic and ambitious multi-specialist business, and in particular strengthens our reputation in the rail, engineering and construction sectors as well as across the board in general industrial."

Nigel Rees, Director of Exxell, said: "Becoming part of the Acorn Group and Synergie will help provide us with an increase in resource and, coupled with their considerable experience, will allow us to grow the business significantly in the years ahead.

"This is undoubtedly an exciting development for everyone involved with Exxell and is a real opportunity for all our customers and staff to benefit from.

"The South East is traditionally one of the most economically-active regions of the UK and will offer many more opportunities for Exxell as well as the enlarged Acorn Group to extend its branch network and make further inroads into the permanent and temporary employment market."