First group figures show immediate impact of acquisition and restructure
“Taranata is an investment vehicle built to lead the sector by bringing together the best in the talent business to react to the future, not the past.”
Paul Atkinson, Taranata Group founder
Taranata Group has reported its first set of figures since undertaking structuring and branding initiatives.
The Group has achieved a turnover of £62m for the year 2017, compared to a combined turnover (for the three Group companies operating in the previous year) of £44.6m for 2016. This represents an uplift of approximately 39%, achieved in part by the acquisition of Change Recruitment in May 2017, but also through increased activity across all Group businesses.
Gross profit has increased by a greater margin, with an uplift of 67%, from £5.1m to £8.5m. This can be attributed to the quality of the staff and more effective working across the Group, resulting in greater profits. Additionally, releasing Change Recruitment from legacy high infrastructure costs allowed a return to profit immediately post-acquisition.
The Taranata Group, which comprises Head Resourcing, Head Medical, Change Recruitment and Atkinson Macleod Executive Search, was formed in 2017 by recruitment entrepreneur and investor, Paul Atkinson. At the time of inception combined turnover of the Group was an estimated £60m.
Callum Lyle, Chief Operating Officer of Taranata Group commented: “Every one of our businesses has performed beyond expectation. Over a year of transformation, our leadership team retained their focus and delivered healthy growth for their businesses – particularly at Head Medical and Head Resourcing, which accounts for the largest share of the uplift.
“The acquisition of Change Recruitment this year was the catalyst for the realisation of a long-held ambition, namely to bring all our recruitment interests together and form an overarching group that would drive further growth of the combined assets.”
In the last year, group businesses have launched new service lines, sector offerings and expanded into new geographic locations. Head Resourcing opened a new Manchester office to capitalise on a thriving market in the north-west of England, and it brought to market Head Contractor Solutions, a new one-stop service for pre-engagement vetting, on-boarding and consultancy services. Change Recruitment launched a construction division and Head Medical won several new commissions, most recently securing a significant contract to provide overseas GPs to NHS England.
However, the growth strategy goes even further, explains Group Executive Chairman Paul Atkinson:
“After almost a year of structuring and ‘whitespace’ review, we are now well placed to drive forward our ambition of £100m turnover by 2020 through a mix of acquisition, growth and innovation.
“We are currently in discussion with a number of potential acquisition targets and have plans to launch new service lines of our own. In all of this, our motivation is to outperform the expectations of our clients, staff and partners, both current and future. Those expectations are changing, particularly driven by the development of robotics and AI and their ability to offer insight to the recruitment process. In response, Taranata Group will adapt and innovate as an intrinsic part of its growth strategy.”
Staff numbers (currently 150) have grown by 10% over the year, and in March 2018 the Group appointed Simone Lockhart as Director of Strategic Development, to drive the Group strategy, including M&A activity and to work hand in hand with the leadership team to realise the growth aspirations of each business, incorporating cross-business initiatives and new product and service development. Two of the businesses have also appointed new Chairs in the last financial year (Change Recruitment, Head Medical).
Paul Atkinson concludes: “Many clients increased their hiring requirements over the year, partly due to additional regulatory burdens. This, coupled with a shortage of skills in many sectors, such as IT and Business Change, has seen us take new approaches as we seek the perfect candidates for our clients. We have also met demand by offering bespoke onboarding and pre-employment screening services. It is these challenges and the way we respond to them that will drive the growth of our business over the coming years.”