The recruitment industry should expect to see more mergers and acquisitions (M&A) as business confidence returns, an expert in M&A trends in recruitment, Christopher Clark, has said.

Clark, an assistant director in PricewaterhouseCooper’s corporate finance practice, said there had been 26 M&A transactions in the industry during the first nine months of 2004. However, 40% of these transactions involved just two firms, Hot Group and Public Recruitment Group, which funded their spending using finance from their stock exchange listings.

But he told delegates at the launch of the REC’s annual survey of the industry that the really big mergers and acquisitions were still on the horizon. “Mergers and acquisitions are driven by confidence. When that comes back we will see the mergers and acquisitions coming again,” he said.