Acorn acquires Draig Personnel

Acorn acquires Draig Personnel

Leading UK multi-regional recruitment and training company Acorn Group has acquired one of Wales’ best-known independently-owned agencies Draig Personnel.

Founded by husband and wife team Ross and Claire Porter at the end of 1999, Draig Personnel started life above a travel agency in Caerphilly town centre and has grown rapidly to boast a current candidate base of more than 16,000 and a turnover in excess of £3m.

For the last decade it has been among the fastest-growing businesses in Wales – specialising in recruitment throughout the South Wales Valleys – with a customer portfolio that ranges from long-established multi-corporations to one-man businesses.

Its takeover by the Wales-based Acorn Group will provide Draig Personnel with the security, strength and experience of a recruitment business that is expected to achieve a £100m plus turnover this year.

Draig Personnel Managing Director Ross Porter – a former Welsh Young Business Achiever of the Year finalist and Gwent Young Entrepreneur of the Year award winner – will remain with the company and says he believes becoming a part of the Acorn stable will bring major benefits to his existing client companies and jobseekers.

“Our link-up with the Acorn Group will offer our 16,000-strong candidate base a far greater range of opportunities to find work, and our clients will enjoy even more support than before,” he said.

“Draig Personnel clients will continue to have the benefit and familiarity of the trusted, local service they have long been used to, but now with far greater support and a wider choice of candidates to choose from.

“For us this is a win-win situation. Like other local recruiters I have looked upon Acorn as the premier recruitment business in Wales and have admired the way the business has grown, including across other regions of the UK, and the reputation they have achieved among employers and jobseekers alike.”

Based on the Caerphilly Business Park, Draig Personnel supplies up to 400 temporary workers every week to the industrial and commercial sectors, including production line packers, warehouse operatives and call centre agents.

Matt Southall, Group Managing Director of Acorn, which has its headquarters at the Celtic Springs Business Park in Newport, said: “We are delighted to have acquired a good, solid and well-trusted local business that is very much at the heart of the community it serves and works within.

“Draig Personnel and Ross Porter have long been recognised by the industry as the leading recruitment experts in the South Wales Valleys, providing excellent standards of service with a reliable and honest reputation. Draig is the perfect complement to the Acorn Group and we look forward to developing the partnerships Ross and his team have with their customers over the coming months and years.”

The Acorn Group has 35 branches across Wales, the West Country, Scotland, the North West of England, London and the South East, placing up to 5,000 people into around 850 different client companies each week.

Matt added: “Having just announced a 36% increase in turnover to £93.5m for 2010, the Acorn Group continues to remain on the lookout for takeover opportunities across the UK as part of its ongoing strategy for growth.”