Recruitment veterans Tony Reeves and John Bowmer are buying control of lacklustre sector player Berkeley Scott and will seek acquisitions.

Reeves, former boss of the hotgroup and of New York-quoted Lifetime Corporation, and Bowmer, ex-chairman of international staffing group Adecco, have agreed to pay £2.5 million at a comfortably discounted price of 17.5p a share in a new financing for AIM-quoted Berkeley Scott. The deal will bring them 62.6 per cent of the company, which has so far specialised in recruiting for hospitality and leisure concerns and lost a nearly doubled £626,000 in the six months to last March.

Reeves and Bowmer are to become joint non-executive chairmen of Berkeley Scott, filling a vacancy left by the earlier departure of previous chairman Jeremy Hamer. Reeves will also become acting chief executive officer until a permanent replacement is found for Roddy Watt, a co-founder of Berkeley Scott, who is leaving the top post as part of the deal.

Joining the board as a non-executive director will be small company financier and PartyGaming chairman Michael Jackson, a contributor to Business XL magazine and founding chairman of Elderstreet Investments. He and Elderstreet Venture Capital Trust own 17.87 per cent of Berkeley Scott before the new shares are issued.

The new controlling group says it wants to grow the company organically and through acquisitions. Reeves comments: ‘We have been looking for some time for an excellent foundation to build a successful recruitment company around a portfolio of premium brands, in the same multi-layered style as the hotgroup.’

Reeves and Bowmer have also been granted warrants to subscribe within six months to another 1.4 million shares at 17.5p. That compares with Berkeley Scott’s 2005 float price of 71p, its 2005 high of 87p and last year’s low of 15.5p.

The shares were 28.5p before today’s deal announcement and have since bounced to 36p. The right deals could stimulate further recovery.

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