BUYER POOL ANALYSIS
Selling a staffing agency to Strategic / Industry buyers
Industry operators, larger competitors, and corporate buyers acquiring for synergies, geographic expansion, or capability fill. Typically pays a premium for clear strategic fit but discounts for integration cost and overlap.
Quick answers
- What multiple does this buyer pool pay?
- Median EV/EBITDA 11.79x across 11 disclosed deals (P25: 5.06x, P75: 19.52x). Median EV/Revenue 0.59x across 15 deals. Median deal value: $166.39M.
- How many disclosed transactions?
- 16 deals total (16 from 2018+), filtered to Strategic / Industry acquirers of staffing agency businesses.
- Most active buyers
- HireQuest, Inc. (3) · Hunt Equity Opportunities, LLC (1) · Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (1) · Paychex, Inc. (1) · First Advantage Corporation (1) · APM Human Services International Limited (:APM) (1)
Recent disclosed deals
Strategic / Industry acquisitions of staffing agency businesses with named target, named acquirer, and disclosed financials.
| Year | Target | Acquirer | EV | EV/EBITDA | EV/Rev |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Kelly Services, Inc. | Hunt Equity Opportunities, LLC | $121.2M | 11.8x | 0.32x |
| 2025 | Dayforce, Inc. | Abu Dhabi Investment Authority | $12734.2M | 47.4x | 6.88x |
| 2025 | Paycor HCM, Inc. | Paychex, Inc. | $4116.2M | 67.5x | 6.09x |
| 2025 | TrueBlue, Inc. | HireQuest, Inc. | $316.1M | 25.5x | 0.21x |
| 2024 | Sterling Ultimate Parent Corp. | First Advantage Corporation | $2247.2M | 17.2x | 3.01x |
| 2023 | TEC, The Employment Company | HireQuest, Inc. | $9.8M | — | 0.29x |
What this buyer pool prices for
Strategic buyers — operators in adjacent geographies, larger competitors, or corporate consolidators — price for synergies and capability fill. They tend to discount integration cost and overlap risk but pay above market when there's clear strategic fit (key customer relationship, license, geography, technician/professional team). Multiples are competitive with PE for fee-viable deals; below PE for sub-scale acquisitions.
Methodology note
Multiples shown are computed from disclosed M&A transactions in the ExitValue.ai database, filtered to staffing agency businesses acquired by strategic / industry buyers. EV/EBITDA outliers outside the [0.5x, 60x] band and EV/Revenue outliers outside [0.05x, 25x] are excluded from medians. Where available, post-2018 transactions are weighted; otherwise the all-time sample is used. Deal counts shown reflect deals with disclosed financials only — total transaction count for this buyer pool is typically 2-3x larger. Full methodology
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