Mark Mitchell told Recruiter that “in terms of headcount and turnover this deal will put us back to where we were two years ago”, after Meridian’s turnover was knocked back by 20-30% by the recession.

The deal, funded by Barclays Bank “from existing facilities”, was “absolutely part of Project £200m”, the company’s plan to double its turnover, he added.
Under the terms of the deal, completed on 26 January, Meridian has taken on Westaff’s 60 staff, its 19 branches, as well as “almost 1,000 contract workers”. Mitchell said the plan was for the Westaff part of the business to double its turnover from £15m to £30m by the end of next year.

Westaff’s and Meridian’s branch networks complemented each other well, said Mitchell. “Meridian branches tend to be in large cities, while Westaff branches are in smaller towns.” The merger will enhance Meridian’s presence in the South West, where Westaff had 10 branches.

Mitchell said it was important that the deal preserved the value of the Westaff business. “We didn’t want to acquire a business which would have involved laying off sales people and branch closures,” he said. The new, bigger group would be looking to expand, particularly in health, industrial, and commercial.

Mitchell said that Meridian intended to apply “a little love and support” to the Westaff business, that had been “a little under-funded in the last year” and “a bit compressed by the tough economy”.

“There is a lot of positivity among Westaff staff that we are going to grow the business,” he said.

Mitchell said that Meridian had chosen acquisition because it was a faster way of expanding the business than growing organically. “It’s very difficult to get the level of scale in terms of 19 teams of people, and 19 sets of clients, and temporary workers - that takes many years to build up, and that’s why acquisition is better,” he said.

Mitchell said that while the name over the door of ex-Westaff branches had already been changed to Meridian, Westaff senior management would remain throughout 2010.

However, he said that from 2011 the managers and staff would develop their careers throughout the expanded company.