Vaco Acquired by Private Equity Firm
November 21, 2017 – Acquisitions continue to make big news in the executive search industry. Now, executive search firm Vaco has been acquired by Stamford, Conn-based private equity firm Olympus Partners.
Founded in 2002 by Jerry Bostelman, Jay Hollomon, and Brian Waller, Vaco partnered with its first private equity partner, Quad-C Management, three years ago.
Since then, the firm has experienced significant growth through extending core business lines and entering new markets.
Vaco completed seven acquisitions during Quad-C’s ownership that significantly expanded its executive search practice, widened its breadth of services in healthcare IT and added new geographies domestically and internationally, including Canada and India. Those most recent acquisitions included a variety search firms, such as Binary Semantics, Pivot Point Consulting, Greythorn and Charlson Partners.
“Vaco is exceedingly appreciative of Quad-C’s contributions,” said Jerry Bostelman, founder and CEO of Vaco. “Olympus brings that same fresh perspective and collaborative approach. Their contribution will be invaluable as we explore how to more cohesively deliver our complete solutions to clients, expand our service lines and geographies throughout the globe and institutionalize the essence of Vaco to ensure its eternal viability,” he said.
Next Stage of Growth
Timothy Billings, a partner at Quad-C, said that Vaco is well positioned for future growth. “In a relatively short period of time, we made significant investments in the company and were able to roughly double Vaco’s revenues, while diversifying the company’s end markets,” he said. “Vaco has an exceptionally strong culture and leadership team and we wish them continued success during their next stage of growth.”
Jason Miller, a partner at Olympus, said his firm looked forward to its work with Vaco. “Jerry, Jay, Brian, and the rest of the Vaco team have built a remarkable entrepreneurial culture that has led to impressive growth across multiple industries and geographies,” he said.
Vaco operates more than 35 offices, with 780-plus employees and 4,300 consultants worldwide. The company specializes in delivering people-driven solutions and matching the C-suite leadership in the accounting, technology and healthcare IT sectors, among others.
Founded in 1988, Olympus manages over $5.5 billion on behalf of corporate pension plans, public retirement systems, university endowment funds, and the executives of Olympus’ portfolio companies. The majority of their limited partners have been investors with Olympus for decades, and Olympus Growth Fund VI, their latest offering, has committed capital of $2.3 billion.
Acquisitions
A number of private equity, staffing and advisory companies have acquired recruiting firms in recent months. Here’s a sampling from the Hunt Scanlon Media Archives:
Recruitment firm CDI Corp. has agreed to be acquired by AE Industrial Partners, a private equity investor specializing in aerospace, power generation and specialty industrial companies. AEI will acquire all of the outstanding shares of the company’s stock for $8.25 per share in an all-cash offer and follow-on merger.
TechnoPro Holdings acquired Tokyo-based Boyd & Moore Executive Search. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Boyd & Moore is a global executive recruitment firm operating primarily in the technology sector, serving multinational clients. With $1 billion in revenue and more than 13,000 engineers, TechnoPro is Japan’s largest engineering staffing outfit.
Simione Healthcare Consultants acquired Healthcare Concepts Inc., a Memphis-based executive recruitment firm that specializes in the home care and hospice industry. he transaction combines the Healthcare Concepts team with Exact Recruiting, which was acquired by Simione in April and is dedicated to home care, hospice, palliative care and other community-based services.
HR consulting company Optimum Talent acquired executive search firm Conroy Ross Partners. Founded in 1994, Conroy Ross Partners is a national search firm with offices across Canada. It works with leadership teams to recruit a wide range of C-level executives.
Executive search firm Sonoma Consulting, Inc. has been acquired by Chicago-based private equity firm Highlands Ventures. With offices in Naperville, Chicago, Tyson’s Corner, and Hyderabad, India, Sonoma Consulting serves over 100 national and international companies.
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor; and Will Schatz, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
