TrueBlue Inc. (NYSE: TBI) plans to acquire Seaton for $310 million from Leeds Equity Partners in a deal that could create the largest industrial staffing firm in the U.S.

Chicago-based Seaton posted revenue of $606 million in 2013. It has more than 140 clients, and its customer base includes Burger King, Delta, Covance, Sysco and Walmart, according to an investor presentation.

Seaton operates through three divisions:

• Staff Management — A provider of high-volume, vendor-on-premise staffing and managed service provider services.
• PeopleScout — A provider of recruitment process outsourcing. This includes HRX, an Austrialia-based RPO provider recently acquired by Seaton.
• StudentScout — A provider of admissions process outsourcing aimed at bringing students to schools.

In 2013, the gross profit mix for Seaton was 62 percent for outsourced workforce management, 29 percent for RPO, 5 percent for MSP and 4 percent for admissions process outsourcing.

Seaton’s brands and management teams will remain in place, according to TrueBlue. Seaton will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of TrueBlue, and the combined businesses will operate as two groups: staffing solutions and outsourced solutions.

Outsourced solutions will include Seaton’s divisions of PeopleScout, Staff Management and StudentScout. The staffing solutions group will be comprised of TrueBlue’s operations including Labor Ready, Spartan, CLP, Centerline and PlaneTechs.

Current Seaton CEO Patrick Beharelle will become president and COO of outsourced solutions. Each service line will continue to report to Beharelle and be led by its current executive team. The group will remain based in Chicago.

Beharelle had appeared on Staffing Industry Analysts' list of 100 of the most influential people in staffing. He joined Seaton in 2008 as COO and was promoted to CEO in 2009.

Wayne Larkin will lead the staffing solutions group as president and COO.

TrueBlue ranks as the fifth-largest industrial staffing firm in the U.S., and Seaton ranks as the 12^th-largest. However, the combined revenue could bring the two firms to the top of the list.

PeopleScout is also a leader in the RPO industry, according to TrueBlue. PeopleScout fills 250,000 positions annually.

The transaction is expected to close early in the third quarter.

“The use of recruitment process and workforce management outsourcing is growing quickly,” said TrueBlue CEO Steve Cooper. “Adding PeopleScout and Staff Management | SMX dramatically expands TrueBlue’s ability to provide these services to customers and also adds to the company’s long-term growth potential.”

The acquisition will also open up new markets for TrueBlue.

“We’re excited we can join with this industry leader, which pioneered outsourcing high-volume recruiting and workforce management, and with their talented employees,” Cooper said. “This partnership accelerates our strategy of driving growth by adding new services that can help our customers be more productive.

“It’s a great fit, and we intend to ensure that they will continue to do exactly what has made them so valuable to their clients. We are also looking forward to making these outsourcing services more accessible to customers who have relied on TrueBlue for their staffing needs.”

Shares in TrueBlue fell 0.53 percent to $27.07 in early afternoon trading; TrueBlue has a market cap of approximately $1.08 billion, according to Yahoo!