An Edinburgh-based headhunting firm is looking at acquisitions in order to drive its expansion plans.
Core-Asset Consulting is seeking to consolidate its offering in fintech, to help replicate last year’s revenue totals of around £15m.
Betsy Williamson, managing director of the 30-strong firm which she founded in 2005, said: “The timing is perfect to go back on the offensive, adding resources in this specialist area to complement our pre-existing market presence - our resourcefulness mean that we have ring-fenced funds with a view to investing in more aggressive expansion.
“While we’re doing our own research in the market we’d welcome any contact from heads of firms looking to an exit or seeking to scale down.”
Scotland has emerged as a prominent fintech hub, with more than 60 start-up companies complementing in-house technology teams at various financial institutions.
As an emerging sector aims to disrupt traditional models of payments, insurance, banking, personal finance and lending. It also covers newer areas such as cyber security, big data, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Jobs in fintech typically include analysts, software engineers, data scientists and infrastructure developers.
Williamson added: “There are so many reasons that the timing is right for this – not least because the IR35 changes in tax law for contractors will hit squarely where small, specialist tech recruiters are conducting business.
“IR35 is likely to have a major impact on them and they will be taking some serious financial hits unless they have gone through the large amounts of work need to get into shape for it.”
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