Peoplelink Staffing Solutions, a South Bend, Ind.-based staffing firm, acquired Fort Worth, Texas-based Trade Management Inc. Trade Management will operate as a separate brand for Peoplelink and current management will remain in place.

The acquisition improves Peoplelink’s footprint in the South Central Region of the country and provides for additional growth in the trades specialty niche. Peoplelink plans to expand Trade Management’s marketplace in oil and gas, as well as expand the brand in general.

“Trade management serves a very fast-growth high-margin type of activity,” said W. “Jay” Wilkinson, Peoplelink’s president and CEO. “I think that it is something that will marry up well with the Peoplelink family.”

Trade Management operates offices in Richardson and Fort Worth, Texas, and Peoplelink plans more offices for the brand “in the not-too-distant future,” said Wilkinson.

The deal closed this week but terms of the transaction were not announced.

Peoplelink operates offices throughout the Midwest, Northeast, Southeast and the plains states. Brands include commercial staffing provider Peoplelink and Zing Recruiting, which serves IT, engineering and manufacturing, and accounting and finance sectors. The company ranked 21st on Staffing Industry Analysts 2011 list of largest industrial staffing firms in the United States with $113 million in U.S. staffing revenue.