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Demand increasing for recruitment M&A, but businesses aren't sale-ready

There is now high demand from buyers to acquire certain types of recruitment businesses, but market conditions are giving owners inflated expectations of their company's worth, an advisor says.

M&A activity was understandably "muted" during the first two years of COVID and there has been "a lot more wariness, a lot more caution around investing in the recruitment sector," says exit strategist Andrew Cassin of Cassin Advisory.

Now, however, demand has been picking up, especially for recruitment agencies in certain sectors.

"I think if I had an IT recruitment company come to me every day, I'd probably be able to sell all of them," Cassin says...