Executive search firm Whitehead Mann has acquired London-based headhunter Leonard Hull Holdings, netting at least £1.6m for the firm’s founder Carol Leonard.

Leonard Hull specialises in board-level and senior executive recruitment across all industry sectors and has 11 employees. In the financial year to April 2003, the firm had a turnover of £2.1m and is understood to be trading profitably.

Over the past two years, it has placed around 50 senior executives, including Sly Bailey as the chief executive of Trinity Mirror and Jane Lighting, the boss of Channel 5.

Whitehead Mann will pay an initial consideration of £1.6m, but it has agreed to pay up to an additional £2m if the company meets its profit targets during the next three years.

Carol Leonard, a former financial journalist, will not join the board but will be part of its top-level management committee responsible for senior appointments.

Like many executive search firms, Whitehead Mann was hit hard by the economic downturn and was forced to make cost-cutting measures during 2003.

In a separate trading statement, chief executive Stephen Lawrence said that profits for the year would be in line with expectations after an increase in enquiries during the second half of the year. “It is not a raging summer but we are seeing the green shoots of spring,” he said.