Silverfleet Capital

orizon

Business overview

orizon is one of Germany’s largest temporary work agencies (TWA) with some 9,000 employees and c90 offices nationwide. The company provides a multi-brand offering under the orizon umbrella, pooling the strengths of three TWAs, specialising in different sectors and regions: RP Personal (blue collar), RKM (engineering) and JiT (white collar and medical sector).

Investment rationale

The German temporary work market has experienced both high historic growth rates and good margins, principally as a consequence of some legislative changes in 2004 that lifted the restrictions on companies employing temporary workers.

Silverfleet Capital’s investment thesis was to build a network throughout Germany, thereby establishing a leading temporary staffing business. Through two add-on acquisitions orizon became one of the top 10 temporary work agencies and today is the last independent platform in the market.

Value creation

Shortly after we acquired Orizon in 2007, we invested in a centralised and highly efficient IT system that has enabled the company to control the assignment of each external employee. In addition, we helped to recruit a new CFO who was charged with significantly upgrading the financial system across the orizon group.

Our buy and build strategy was initiated a few months after acquiring orizon, with two major bolt-on acquisitions completed in June and July 2007, being SIR - acquired from Thyssen Krupp, and jobs-in-time. These two acquisitions further strengthened the network throughout Germany.