Baird sells Team BS

Baird Capital Partners Europe, a UK mid-market private equity firm, has sold Team BS, a German temporary staffing business, to rival Randstad Holding for €71m.

Team BS has 36 outlets and primarily focuses on staffing for the pharmaceutical, chemical, consumer goods and automotive industries. Revenues for 2007 are expected to amount to about €55m.

The acquisition implies an expected Ebita multiple of between nine and 10 times that of Team BS in 2007 and should provide a generous multiple for Baird Capital Partners Europe, which invested €9.5m to back a management buyout of the business in January 2004.

Randstad said that the size of the German staffing market was more than €9bn in 2006, making it the second largest in Europe. Randstad has a market share of about 14% currently and the business sees major growth potential as just 1% of the German working population is currently employed through a staffing agency.

Chris Harper, a partner at Baird Capital Partners Europe who oversees the firm’s business services investments, was not immediately available for comment. However, in a recent conversation with IFR Buyouts, Harper said that “businesses in the recruitment sector are typically mid-sized with values of up to £50m, [and] although pricing isn’t always the decisive factor, often it is about who can move them on to the next stage and it helps that we have such a strong track record in this sector”.

Harper has led six investments in the UK recruitment sector and one in Germany recently, including £13m in recruitment consultancy Aston Carter in May. Other investments include Public Recruitment Group and Capital Consulting.