International recruiter GI Group is to float on the Italian stock exchange, turning the recent purchaser of UK industrial recruiter Right4Staff into a truly global company, according to Stefano Colli-Lanzi, president and chief executive at GI Group.

Last month, GI Group bought Right4Staff from equity firm Alchemy. Colli-Lanzi told Recruiter that Right4Staff would rebrand as GI Group within the next month, while its management team would remain in place led by former Right4Staff CEO and now country head Jess Watts, ahead of planned expansion both in the UK and further afield.

“We are planning this step [floatation] to grow. It is convenient to open up to the public. We are planning that for 2012 and 2013 and that is with a view to growing capital to expand into the US.

“In 2007 we went abroad, starting with Germany. We bought five companies and we now have around 70 branches in Germany. We bought companies in Poland, Romania, Spain, China, India and Brazil.

“Now we want to become a global company. Over the next three of four years, we want to cover 30 countries. We want to expand in France, Switzerland, Sweden, Holland and Eastern Europe – ie Bulgaria, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

“We see Russia and Turkey as tremendous potential markets. We want to develop in South America. We operate in Brazil and Argentina but we want to open in Peru, Chile, Colombia and the next step will be to go to the US to become a global true multi-national company.

“Right4Staff is our first acquisition in the UK. It will give us a presence in the UK market. We are interested in the model of having an onsite recruitment presence. We like this model and we think this model can be developed in other countries around the world.

“We want to become bigger in the UK with the existing team and maybe introduce new resources into this team. We want to build a global approach to customers and take ‘professionality’ from the UK market.”