The acquisition of MSB International this month sees a remarkable series of events go almost full circle, returning control to Peter Flaherty, who first became its chief executive 15 years ago.

Primarily an IT recruitment firm, MSB was set up by Mark Goldberg in the mid-1980s. Flaherty bought it from the receiver in 1991, and became chief executive. Goldberg retained a stake. After floating the company on the stock exchange in 1996, Goldberg sold his interest in 1997 and invested the massive profits into South London football team Crystal Palace.

In 2001, Flaherty was ousted from the board after a disagreement with major shareholders. However, he retained his stake.

The following year, he tried to have the board removed, so he could regain control. But he was unsuccessful.

In 2002, he set up Recruitment Investment Group (RIG), with Bryan Lloyd, formerly of Spring Group. RIG operates in a variety of sectors, including recruiting for the police and for NHS Trusts.

Earlier this year, MSB was back in play. It announced to the stock exchange that it had received a takeover approach. This is known to have come from Quantica which was said to be offering about 55p a share, valuing MSB at £11.2m. As he still owned 14.7% of MSB shares, Flaherty was made aware of the offer. He decided he could top it.

In May, he approached MSB, through his dormant company Keyman Personnel, offering 65p a share, or £13.3m. Quantica's process of examining MSB's books was already well advanced, and it had "first mover" advantage. However, it could not, or would not, match Keyman's price. The Keyman bid was sufficiently rich to see off another interested (third) bidder.

MSB shares will cease trading in October, when the firm comes under Flaherty's control.

Bryan Lloyd will replace Andrew Zielinski as chief executive. Flaherty will be chairman. MSB made a pre-tax loss of £558,000 in the year to January 2006, on turnover of £95.7m.

Lloyd pointed to past years' profits and said he was upbeat for the future. He told Recruiter he saw no need for downsizing, or redundancies. "They've already undertaken most of the restructuring needed," he said. He added that there were no plans to float either RIG or Keyman on the stock exchange. RIG will operate separately from Keyman.