August has seen a flurry of acquisition activity in the recruitment industry, with three major agencies being snapped up.

Irish recruitment firm Premier bought Nigel Lynn Associates for £6m. And support services firm Enterprise landed HR and contract specialist Trinity Group Holdings in a £21m deal.

And publishing giant Trinity Mirror sealed a £13m agreement for Financial Jobs Online, owner of the finance job board GAAPweb.

The sale of Nigel Lynn Associates is a major success story as it is just two years since administrators sold it to a turnaround specialist for just £1.

Kelso Place Asset Management bought the accountancy recruiter in 2003 after it went into administration.

The company had expanded but overstretched itself and lacked the funds to support its network of 17 offices.

But Kelso took control of the firm, reduced its number of offices to 13 and recruited a crack team of consultants.

In a separate development, Steve Carter, formerly managing director of Robert Half in the UK, has joined Premier to lead Nigel Lynn and plans to double the size of the business using Premier’s financial clout.

He said: “Premier is a success story in its own right and no-one would have anticipated them buying into the British market.

“Nigel Lynn has been a sleeping giant for a long time and now it is time for it to wake up.”

Trinity Group Holdings, which last year made profits on £1.2m on a turnover of £21m, works mainly with local authorities, housing associations, with particular focus in revenues and benefits, social housing and social care markets.

Enterprise paid an initial consideration of £7.5m in cash and will pay an additional £13.5m in shares or loan notes in 2008 if the company performs well.

An spokeswoman for Enterprise said: “The acquisition of the Trinity Group is an excellent opportunity to further develop Enterprise’s professional services offering to the public sector.

“The skills and experience offered by the Trinity team will provide a solid foundation on which to deliver innovative solutions in the recruitment and HR managed services market.”

Meanwhile, Trinity Mirror’s swoop for Financial Jobs Online is a further indication that large publishing companies are interested in buying online recruiters in order to claw back recruitment advertising revenue.

Trinity is one of the companies rumoured to be interested in buying the Hotgroup, which owns a series of job sites and traditional recruitment agencies.

The publisher paid £10.45m up front in cash and will pay up to £2.6m according to performance.