Healthcare Staffing Report: Nov. 13, 2014

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Investment group acquires VMS and MSP firm

Investment firm Investcorp acquired PRO Unlimited, which offers VMS, MSP and independent contractor compliance/payrolling services. The transaction was announced today but terms were not disclosed.

PRO offers its MSP under the PRO Unlimited Inc. brand, and its VMS operates under the brands Wand, Wand Mobile and Wand Tablet. PRO ranked as the second-largest MSP in terms of statement-of-work spend among VMS and MSP firms taking part in the 2014 VMS and MSP Supplier Competitive Landscape report by Staffing Industry Analysts.

PRO was previously owned by Boston-based private equity firm ABRY Partners. Earlier, PRO was part of Comforce, a publicly traded staffing firm that was acquired by ABRY in late 2010.

Boca Raton, Fla.-based PRO began in 1991, operates in 52 countries and has approximately 600 employees.

There were other VMS acquisitions this year, including SAP’s acquisition of Fieldglass and IQNavigator buying ProcureStaff.

“The transactions in the space continue to show interest by financial markets that contingent workforce management is a growing field, and these sorts of things demonstrate there is a lot of opportunity left in the market,” said Bryan Peña, VP, contingent workforce strategies and research, at Staffing Industry Analysts.

Investcorp began in 1982 and is aimed at helping high net-worth individuals and institutions in the Gulf states invest in the West, according to its website.

“Over the past few decades, changing workforce dynamics have shifted the use of contingent workers from purely tactical to strategic in nature, particularly for high-end knowledge workers,” said Investcorp Managing Director Maud Brown. “PRO’s integrated approach provides a higher level of insight and customer service to its blue-chip customer base, which includes several of the Global 1000 companies.”

PRO co-founder and CEO Andrew Schultz said the deal will allow the company to grow.

“We are pleased to have reached this agreement, which will allow us to expand our best-in-class software and services solutions,” Schultz said. “We look forward to continuing to provide customers with superior technical solutions and unparalleled service levels while working with our investors to expand internationally, creating greater opportunities for our employees and our business.”