HOHR announced in May that Bain Capital PE had entered into a share purchase agreement to acquire a 55% stake in the company. The deal was made official on 4 November 2022, making Bain Capital the majority shareholder at House of HR. With this new strategic partnership, HOHR will be able to scale up its unique platform into new markets and increase digital investments, the company said. 

House of HR claims that the completion of this deal marks the biggest buy-out by private equity in Belgium ever. With this deal, HOHR now has around 600 employee shareholders.

The first acquisition to be made by HOHR under Bain Capital’s wings is Dutch company Agium, specialising in finance. HOHR has also signed a promise to acquire French company ABMI, specialising in consulting and engineering services. 

This makes 16 completed acquisitions by the European HR solutions provider in 2022. 

According to CEO Rika Coppens, HOHR is fulfilling its ambition to grow even further in specialised and niche staffing and digital solutions. “Given the degree of specialisation of House of HR and our focus on high-demand scarce profiles, we can maintain our ambition to grow,” she said.

Dutch company Agium was acquired by HOHR’s subsidiary company Redmore, specialising in risk, technology, business, legal and finance services for financial service providers, business service providers and governments. Founded in 2002 by Stephan Persoon and Robbert van Adrichem, Agium forms an extension of Redmore’s finance services, specializing in finance & control, recruitment services and finance transformation.

With a revenue of €19.3m (£16.83m) in 2021, and 190 employees of which are 165 consultants, Agium (headquartered in Delft) entered the HOHR group in early October. 

HOHR’s offer to buy the French company ABMI has been submitted to the relevant employee representative bodies for consultation and is expected to be completed in Q4 2022, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Once this transaction goes through, French company ABMI will form a close partnership via a common holding with Abylsen, the French engineering group specialising in industry, digital and life sciences services, part of HOHR since 2015.

Founded in 1984, ABMI is present in France and Belgium and has 750 employees of which 650 work as consultants. It had a turnover of €50m in 2021. ABMI was previously majority owned by Omnes Capital.

The new holding company would be led by Florian Massaux as CEO and Vincent Coent as general manager. Both would remain in place as CEO of Abylsen and ABMI respectively.

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