Australian recruitment agency, Andersen Partnership, is looking for private equity investment to fund a worldwide expansion that could see it employing up to 700 recruiters.

The business, launched two years ago by Niall Hamill (left) – former chief operating officer of FiveTen Asia Pacific, already has offices in Sydney and Melbourne, employing some 35 people. Its main market is providing management candidates for the insurance, banking, accounting and technology sectors.

However Hamill, who plans to open in Brisbane and Perth this year and Hong Kong and Singapore early next year, wants to take Andersen to 150 staff by 2013 and eventually expand the agency to 20 times its current size by rolling it out across Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Describing Andersen as providing a “posh Page” service, Hamill said he was looking to exploit an under-served sector, providing contingent recruitment of mid- to senior management, in the $120-400,000 pa (£73-250,000) salary bracket, to about 200-300 large corporate clients.

“Our ultimate goal is to partner with a private equity firm in 2013 and roll out our proven model globally in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. We need a big cash injection to get to 600-700 people,” says Hamill.

“We tend to specialise in what are traditionally perceived to be ‘hard to fill’ roles, where traditional recruitment companies struggle due to the seniority or complexity of the assignment, or where clients are reluctant to engage the services of an executive search firm.

“If you’re in a commoditised space you’ll do quite well quite quickly – if the market picks up. The high end is already doing well because it’s not market-dependent. But if you’re a boutique contingent recruiter you’ve problems if you have no point of differentiation – ours will be by being a large boutique working over a large area.”