South Africa’s largest staffing firm Adcorp (ADR: JSE) announced yesterday that it has acquired an option in, and entered into a strategic partnership with, Singapore-based workforce management group APBA Pte Ltd.

Invested across a number of Asian countries; including Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and Japan, APBA offers comprehensive services in recruitment, human resource consulting, payroll outsourcing, as well as various outsourced human resource functions.

In terms of the strategic partnership, Adcorp will have a financial involvement with APBA that will assist it in accelerating the growth of its business in the region, and also includes the possible future participation by Adcorp in the equity of that business.

Richard Pike, CEO of Adcorp, said: “This strategic tie up is an important milestone for both businesses. There is much that we can learn from each other, there are exciting cross selling opportunities and, most importantly, it enables us to offer our clients unique solutions across Asia, Africa and Australia in a number of important industry sectors such as oil and gas, health care, infrastructure, hospitality, ICT, telecoms and manufacturing.”

“Increasingly, there is a demand by clients for uniform workforce management solutions that span the global reach of their operations. The tie up with APBA is a very important and strategic piece of the jigsaw puzzle for us in terms of our ability to service such clients across an extensive, international reach that spans three continents.”

Paul Ng, CEO of APBA, added: “Given the significant capital flows taking place between Asia, Australia and Africa, the tie up between our two organisations provides an ideal opportunity for us to follow these investment flows with unique and targeted human capital solutions.”

Mr Pike concluded: “This tie up with APBA is another big and important step in fulfilling our strategic objective to become a workforce management company of consequence focused on emerging markets and the Southern Hemisphere and in particular, Africa, Asia and Australia. I am most enthusiastic about the partnership with APBA, the many possibilities it presents for us and the contribution it will make to achieving our ambitious strategic goals.”