Key takeaways:
- Knox Lane’s $437 million all-cash acquisition of Cross Country Healthcare was Q2’s signature deal and marks one of the largest PE-backed healthcare staffing transactions since the 2022 M&A peak.
- Executive search consolidation accelerated significantly, with ZRG completing two acquisitions in six weeks and building clear platform density across corporate, nonprofit, and board-level search.
- Large staffing generalists are actively shedding non-core geography, with Hays divesting six European operations to Meraki Capital in one of the most substantial divestiture deals in the firm’s recent history.
The private equity return was the story of Q2
Q1 2026 closed with 35 transactions, the strongest opening quarter in at least three years. Q2 carried that momentum forward with fewer deals but considerably more capital deployed. Private equity, which spent most of Q1 on the sidelines or limited to careful add-ons, stepped back into the arena in Q2 with conviction.
The backdrop helped. The new SIA Staffing Confidence Index reached a post-pandemic high in June 2026, suggesting that operating conditions inside staffing firms have improved enough for principals on both sides of the table to transact with more confidence.
That shift is reflected in deal behavior. Q2’s buyers were not hedging. They were writing checks with a clear strategic thesis behind each one.
None of the quarter’s significant deals were about buying revenue for its own sake. Each one targeted something specific, like a clinical workforce platform at scale, boardroom search credibility in a niche sector, financial services IT capability, or geographic exits that free capital for higher-return markets. That discipline is a hallmark of a maturing M&A cycle.
Knox Lane’s $437 million bet on healthcare workforce demand
The quarter’s defining transaction came on May 6, when Cross Country Healthcare announced a definitive agreement to be taken private by Knox Lane, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, in an all-cash transaction valued at $437 million. Knox Lane will pay $13.25 per share in cash, a 31% premium to Cross Country’s closing price on announcement day. The deal is expected to close in Q3, pending shareholder and regulatory approval.
Cross Country, which SIA research ranks as the seventh-largest US healthcare staffing firm, reported $1.05 billion in revenue in 2025. Its brands span travel nursing, locum tenens, and school-based services, giving Knox Lane a diversified clinical workforce platform with established technology infrastructure. The deal comes after Aya Healthcare terminated its own proposed merger with Cross Country earlier in the year, citing shifting market conditions after extended regulatory scrutiny.
Knox Lane, which manages approximately $3.5 billion in assets, already holds All Star Healthcare in its portfolio. Cross Country represents a considerably larger and more diversified platform bet on the same underlying thesis about persistent workforce shortages. SIA senior healthcare staffing analyst Crystal Fullilove noted that the deal reflects investor conviction that healthcare workforce shortages will remain a long-term challenge. That thesis, with or without All Star as prior context, justifies a check of this size.
ZRG made two executive search acquisitions in six weeks
Two deals in Q2 came from the same buyer, six weeks apart, serving as an example of where executive search investment is going.
ZRG announced its acquisition of Howard Fischer Associates (HFA) on April 9. HFA, a Philadelphia-based firm with nearly 40 years of history, built its reputation on VP-and-above searches for boards, C-suite leaders, and PE-backed organizations across technology, financial services, manufacturing, and consumer products. ZRG CEO Larry Hartmann called out the firm’s credibility in high-stakes leadership decisions, not just placement volume. Howard Fischer will join ZRG as managing director.
Then in May, ZRG acquired Sterling Martin Associates, a Washington, DC-based executive search firm specializing in professional associations, nonprofits, and mission-driven organizations. Sterling Martin has advised organizations including the National PTA, the Society for Neuroscience, and the Ecological Society of America. ZRG called out the specific credibility Sterling Martin carries in sectors where leadership decisions have consequences that extend well beyond financial performance.
Together these two deals round out ZRG’s platform across sectors: technology, financial services, consumer, nonprofit, and education. SIA research ranks ZRG as the seventh-largest retained search firm in the US, backed by private equity investor RFE Investment Partners. At this pace, that ranking won’t hold for long.
IT staffing targeted specific sector expertise
Two IT staffing deals closed in Q2, and both buyers were targeting specific sector capability rather than generic headcount.
On May 8, LanceSoft acquired SynergisticIT, an IT and business operations staffing firm focused on Fortune 500 clients and large public-sector entities in financial services and insurance. The deal also brought statement-of-work capabilities into LanceSoft’s portfolio, extending beyond pure staff augmentation. Founded in 1992, SynergisticIT primarily serves the banking and insurance sectors. LanceSoft CEO Anju Abel said the acquisition would allow the combined company to offer integrated solutions spanning sourcing, upskilling, and deployment across digital transformation work in financial services.
On April 30, Tech Mahindra announced the acquisition of Avant Techno Solutions, a Canada-based IT services provider with 240+ staff and contractors and CAD 58.6 million in 2025 revenue. The initial payment was CAD 28 million. Tech Mahindra said the acquisition would strengthen its capabilities in banking, financial services, and insurance at a time when the sector is balancing rapid digital transformation with growth demands.
Financial services is clearly a focal point in Q2 IT acquisitions. Banks and insurers are accelerating digital transformation work, and staffing firms with deep sector relationships and SOW delivery capabilities are the ones attracting buyers.
24 Seven kept building its marketing and creative platform
24 Seven announced the acquisition of Crawford Group on April 15, with the deal having closed April 1. Founded in 2000, Crawford Group is a marketing and events agency that serves enterprise and mid-size clients on global events, integrated campaigns, content creation, and marketing technology work. The deal marks 24 Seven’s 13th acquisition and was driven by a specific capability gap: events management at scale.
SIA’s 2025 ranking places 24 Seven second among US marketing and creative staffing firms. Its acquisition strategy has moved well beyond traditional staffing. The firm now offers AI consulting, embedded teams, a creative agency for outsourced project work, and executive recruitment alongside its core contract and direct-hire business. Crawford Group extends that platform further into live and digital events.
24 Seven is using acquisition to build a suite of services that makes it harder to compare apples to apples against competitors whose business is still primarily placement.
Hays shed six European operations, and a smaller rival built on what it left
On June 16, Hays completed the sale of its operations in six European countries to Meraki Capital for net cash proceeds of approximately £4 million after transaction costs. The businesses sold cover specialist recruitment in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Luxembourg, Romania, and Sweden.
Hays CEO Mark Dearnley has noted that the firm is concentrating resources on 16 core markets where it can build scale and market-leading positions. The six divested countries collectively contribute around break-even operating profit. That profile doesn’t warrant continued management attention when capital can be redeployed elsewhere. Hays is also in active discussions about operations in seven additional countries, including Belgium, Brazil, Greater China, and the Netherlands.
For Meraki Capital, a London-based recruitment investment firm, the Hays transaction is one of the most substantial deals in its history. Since the start of 2026, Meraki has completed seven acquisitions across specialist white-collar and blue-collar recruitment businesses. The six Hays businesses bring established client relationships and experienced local leadership teams in markets where building from scratch would take years.
Large staffing generalists with underperforming geographies are facing pressure to sharpen their portfolios. The firms willing to move decisively on divestitures will find ready buyers.
The deal that didn’t happen, and why it matters
On May 12, HireQuest submitted a $105 million all-cash proposal to acquire the on-demand portion of TrueBlue’s PeopleReady segment. TrueBlue’s board unanimously rejected the offer on May 27, calling it a material undervaluation of a business entering its fourth consecutive quarter of growth.
HireQuest CEO Richard Hermanns had framed the on-demand PeopleReady operations as a persistent underperformer for TrueBlue and argued that HireQuest’s franchise model would unlock value the current structure cannot. TrueBlue’s board disagreed, and they are not wrong to hold out if internal trends are genuinely improving.
What this standoff reveals is that industrial staffing assets are generating more buyer interest than their current valuations fully reflect. HireQuest has now made multiple attempts to acquire TrueBlue in some form and is maintaining that persistence heading into Q3.
Q3 is set up for continued activity
With Cross Country/Knox Lane pending close, the HireQuest/TrueBlue situation unresolved, and Hays still working through its broader European portfolio review, Q3 has a ready pipeline of news before a single new deal is announced. The SIA Staffing Confidence Index’s inaugural reading of 128.7 reflects improving current conditions alongside cautious optimism about the second half of the year.
Buyers who spent 2024 and early 2025 waiting for seller expectations to reset are now more willing to transact. Deal structures still include earnouts and deferred consideration, but the valuation gap that froze many negotiations has narrowed. For owners evaluating an exit, that is the clearest green light the market has offered in several years.
This roundup covers Q2 2026 only (April 1 through June 30).
