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GWS BECOMES NEW MAIN OWNER OF STAFFPOINT

Finland’s largest temporary personnel agency, StaffPoint Oy, founded in 1992, is now under the ownership of GWS, Varma and the company’s management.

Turnover in the temporary personnel sector amounts to almost EUR 1 billion in Finland. There are about 400 firms in the sector in Finland, of which the ten largest account for 60 per cent of the market. StaffPoint has been under the ownership of CapMan since 2002.

“StaffPoint’s turnover has grown steadily over the past few years. The company has a very strong position in the market with an excellent reputation among employees and client firms and a network that covers the entire country,” states GWS CEO, Andreas Tallberg.

“The temporary personnel sector has grown at an average annual rate of 24 per cent in Finland during the past few years. Growth is expected to continue, as temporary personnel is still employed only half as much in Finland as in many other EU countries, where temporary personnel accounts for as much as 3 per cent of the workforce,” says StaffPoint CEO, Seppo Niva.

“StaffPoint has developed very well during the last five years and the company’s turnover has grown by almost a fifth annually. I believe that the strategic position we have built with the company’s management during our investment period and the growth forecasts for the sector create good prerequisites for StaffPoint’s business activities in the future as well,” states CapMan senior partner, Tuomo Raasio.

Firms hire staff for various temporary tasks to cover gaps in their workforce and to increase flexible use of human resources. The temporary personnel agency carries out the groundwork: it searches for, interviews and selects an employee and takes care of employer obligations. Some 25 per cent of temporary staff later get a permanent job at the client firm.

“During the present year we are expanding our range of services to include payroll management and recruitment services to our temporary personnel services. We already recruit 10,000 employees per year and our payroll management applies to 120 different collective agreement contracts covering over 200,000 pay checks per year, which means our processes have been honed to a very high level of competitiveness” explains Seppo Niva.

For further information contact:
Andreas Tallerg, CEO, G.W.Sohlberg Corporation, tel. 040-7002252
Seppo Niva, CEO, StaffPoint Oy, tel. 040-5883580

STAFFPOINT

StaffPoint Oy, founded in 1992, is the largest temporary personnel agency in Finland offering its client firms temporary personnel and recruitment services from its 20 locations. The firm’s turnover in 2007 amounted to EUR 87 million with the firm actively employing some 18,000 temporary employees, carrying out almost one million shifts per year.

GWS

GWS (the G.W. Sohlberg Corporation) is a Finnish family firm, founded in 1876. It owns a limited number of firms, at least medium-sized, with good profitability and a leading position in their markets.

GWS already holds a 33.1 per cent stake in the Glaston Corporation, a glass technology company and global market leader in glass processing machinery and a 79.39 per cent stake in Detection Technology, Inc., which designs and manufactures X-ray detectors.