Thinking about what's next?Start with a conversation.
Most founders wait too long to talk. Not because something is wrong, but because they assume it must be. The strongest conversations happen while the business is still performing.
Read our guide to selling a recruitment business ›
Advising a business owner? There is a page for advisers and brokers ›
Four businesses,told in full.
Each one tells you why the deal happened, what we kept, what we added and what the people involved say about it now.
UK blue collar, industrial and temporary staffing businesses. Five have joined Magnus since 2025.
Read the story ›Expert recruitment in banking and finance, life sciences and automation engineering, delivering across the US and Europe.
Read the story ›A global cybersecurity practice, and local recruitment in its six European markets. Eight offices, from Stockholm to New York.
Read the story ›Engineering, energy, utilities and technical workforce businesses built on contract work.
Read the story ›Speak to someonewho has done it.
The best way to judge a buyer is to ask the people who have already worked with it. We will introduce you, and we will not be on the call.
Three questionsbefore any price.
Three yeses and we are interested. Two and we will talk. One and we won't waste your time.
Market
Is it specialist rather than a bit of everything, and is it actually growing? A small pond that is filling up beats a big one that is draining.
Model
What is the real value and the real return? Not the headline revenue. What actually converts, what recurs, and what it costs to keep it coming.
People
Right people, right seat. Not just whether they are good, but whether they are in the job the business needs them in.
Where wewalk away.
Saying what we won't buy is what makes what we will buy believable. None of these get fixed by paying more.
- One client matters more than all the others. If losing one account takes half the business with it, that is a relationship, not a business.
- The revenue lives in two people's phones.
- It is a hundred per cent permanent. Every pound of perm has to be won again from nothing, while a book with contract in it keeps paying.
- The employment law turns a clean deal into a long commitment. Know where your people actually sit before you go to market.
With Nick Gordon, our founder. No paperwork, no obligation, and nobody in your business needs to know.
We look at the three things that decide whether we are interested, and we tell you plainly where we land.
Alan Connor, our Chief Investment Officer, and Scott Coleman, our Chief Financial Officer, work through structure, diligence and any growth facility with you. Pippa Williamson leads the legal work.
We start by agreeing what must not change. Clients and candidates should notice nothing except more behind you.
Finance, legal, technology, data and marketing run once for the whole group, with delivery support from our team in South Africa. What one business learns, the others get.
What happensto your name?
It depends on what is best for the business. We will tell you which we think it is before you sign anything.
Kept its name and its specialism, with a sharper brand and the group behind it.
It evolvesHamlyn Williams to HW3A new name that says what the business does, not where it started.
It joins a bigger oneFive into MagnusFive businesses now trade as one national brand. Their leaders are still there.
It starts againSix into TesseroSix markets, one new name, launched on the same morning.
There is a routefor you too.
Minted Talent, part of the Meraki family, brings together specialist recruitment businesses of around £1m EBITDA, so they are worth more together than they would be on their own.
Get readybefore you need to be.
The most expensive mistake has nothing to do with the offer. Most deals die before they even begin. Not because the business was wrong, but because the seller was not ready.
Get your numbers clean, with three years of them. Line your lawyers up before, not after. And have one version of your story that everybody in the business tells the same way.
None of that is expensive. It is just not urgent until it suddenly is.
Ready for a confidential conversation?
Every conversation starts with Nick Gordon, our founder. It is confidential, it commits you to nothing, and the best ones happen while the business is still performing.