Future's Bright Purple for Scots recruitment firm

RECRUITMENT firm Bright Purple Resourcing (BPR) has laid out plans to treble turnover to £100 million over the next three years as the Edinburgh-based company prepares to open its first overseas office.

BPR yesterday unveiled a pre-tax profit of 1.4m in the year to 31 March, up from 429,000 in the preceding 12 months. Turnover nearly doubled from 18.6m to 37m.

Managing director Nick Price, pictured below, told The Scotsman that the growth was down to increased activity in the financial services and technology sectors, in which the firm specialises.

"It's been broad-based growth," he said. "Clients like Tesco Bank have been expanding but so have companies like Standard Life and Lloyds Banking Group.

"You hear a lot of headlines about Royal Bank of Scotland losing jobs but the bank is also still recruiting in other areas because it's reshaping itself."

In the technology sector, Price said that smaller companies such as flight comparison website Skyscanner and Vebnet, Standard Life's employee benefits unit, were also experiencing strong growth, creating more business for companies like BPR.

Price added: "Our increase in profits was extremely pleasing because we have continued to invest in hiring new people, moving our London office to Tower 42, the NatWest Tower, and pumping money into new technology too."

BPR has 39 staff at its head office in Edinburgh and a further six in London.

The company yesterday signed the lease on its new office in Singapore, which is due to open in five weeks.

Price has recruited Iain Geddes, a former director of Glasgow-based recruitment giant Search Consultancy, to run the Far East operation.

Opening BPR's first office overseas is the next step in Price's strategy to grow annual turnover to 100m by 2014.

"We know that we can't grow the company into a 100m business by just servicing Scotland alone," he explained.

"So we've looked at other areas where we can grow and Singapore was an obvious choice. It has historic links with Scotland but it's also at the centre of the fastest-growing markets in the world - you have China and India on your doorstep."

Price said the firm had been carrying out work in New York and so was considering opening an office in the United States, as well as running the rule over opportunities in Lithuania, the largest of the Baltic states and a key access point for Russia.

The growth of BPR - founded in 1995 as CareerCare and re-branded six years ago - has been aided by chairman Peter Flaherty, a key player in the recruitment sector in the City.

Flaherty ran MSB International between 1991 and 2001, guiding the business to a 210m flotation in London.He now runs Recruitment Investment Group with former Spring IT Personnel boss Bryan Lloyd.

But Price said that, despite PBR's international expansion and Flaherty's base in London, his company would remain in Scotland. Price has a 44 per cent stake in BPR, while Flaherty's holding is 25 per cent.

In September, the company will open its own training academy at its Edinburgh base, which will enhance both the skills of staff at the company but also offer accredited training - through a business school in Nottingham and other providers - to clients.

"If we want to grow the business to 100m then I know we need about 120 staff and they need them in place by the end of 2012," added Price. "The academy will allow us to train young people so that we can expand."