Atkinson, who co-founded recruitment business Direct Resources in the mid-1990s, has created Scotland-headquartered Taranata Group as a holding body for his staffing companies.

The group, named after the Maori word for talent, includes Head Resourcing, Change Recruitment, Head Medical and Atkinson Macleod. It has a total workforce of almost 150 and a combined turnover of about £65m.

Atkinson stated his ambitions to increase the group’s revenue to £100m by 2020 and list it on the stock market. He said as many as four specialist recruiters could be added to the group and that international work could increase from a third to more than half the group’s income. 

“I have been involved in the industry for 30 years and I see a great opportunity to consolidate some really good businesses into a bigger place,” Atkinson told Recruiter. “It is about creating the scale to list.”

He said he was looking for UK-based recruitment businesses to exploit technology and international markets. “UK firms who are trading heavily internationally are likely to be our focus [for acquisitions],” he said.

“We have great expertise here and can deploy it globally. Also it means you are then not dependent on one market.”

Atkinson added that he would be interested in those firms with technology to offer the group or which could benefit from having existing technology applied to their business. 

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