Acquisition

5 Oct 2006 07:00

Empresaria Group PLC05 October 2006 Acquisition of Polish staffing companies Empresaria Group plc ("Empresaria") is pleased to announce that, as a furtherstep in line with its strategic objective of building a broad internationalpresence, it has entered into a binding commitment to acquire a 51% shareholdingin each of the following companies: ITC PRACA Sp. Z.o.o.ITC APT Sp. Z.o.o.ITC CS Sp. Z.o.o. Based in Krakow, Poland, the companies share a common management team. ITC PRACAis a leading brand in the "work abroad" market, sourcing Polish workers onbehalf of overseas organisations in Western and Southern Europe. In 2005 thecompany sourced approximately 3,000 workers for the UK and Ireland markets. ITCAPT is a temporary staffing company focusing on the Polish local market. ITC CSprovides training services to candidates. Through its acquisition of the above companies, Empresaria has also acquired anindirect interest of 25% in Cufik Sp. Z.o.o. Cufik is a candidate careoperation, providing Polish contractors and migrant workers with insurance andtravel services as well as offering tax consultancy. Empresaria is paying initial consideration of £0.6m for 51% of each of the abovebusinesses with potential further consideration of up to £0.7m payable dependenton financial performance in 2006 and 2007. The current management team retainsthe balance of the shares in each company. Miles Hunt, Empresaria Chief Executive, commented: "ITC is a successful, well established, Polish staffing brand. It has strongbrand presence in the work abroad market and is enjoying rapid growth in itslocal Poland based temporary staffing operations. The investment by Empresariain ITC and its related companies provides direct access to Polish workers to ourUK based operations and gives Empresaria exposure to the high growth Polishstaffing market. This is another significant step in Empresaria's strategy tobecome a broadly based international staffing group." This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange