Following the announcement earlier this week that Australian staffing firm Skilled Group has reopened what it once considered “unwelcome” merger talks with Programmed Maintenance Services. Chris Sutherlands, Programmed CEO, has spoken about how the merger would give the combined entity scale to compete for bigger contracts, reports news.com.au.

Speaking after Programmed announced an almost 16% slide in its full-year profit to March 2015, Mr Sutherlands talked up the virtues of the proposed merger.

Programmed provides services across a wide range of industries, from resources to education, and Mr Sutherland said the merger would create a more efficient and flexible combined entity: "We think that the long-term opportunities across all sectors for a strong staffing and maintenance facilities and services provider is very good.”

"That's part of the proposition of bringing our two businesses together, we are a strengthened outfit with stronger balance sheet and more able to take on larger opportunities."

Skilled previously rejected an offer of AUD 1.38 (USD 1.07) per share from Programmed in January. Mr Sutherland would not comment on suggestions from analysts that it may need to lift its offer to AUD 1.60 (USD 1.25).

"All we've done is indicate that we've got some flexibility around the terms about how we can combine the businesses," he said.