Whitney announces management buy-out

A group led by Gary Goldstein, chairman and chief executive of Whitney Group, led the buy-out. It has also acquired Futures International, a financial services executive search firm, which has offices in New York and London. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

As part of the deal, Goldstein has resigned as chairman and chief executive of Headway. Richard Stein, the New York-based chief executive of Futures International, is expected to remain there with Whitney, which also has offices in Boston and Chicago in the US.

Simon Hall will run Whitney's enlarged offices in Europe, which are expected to relocate to London's financial services district.

Barry Roseman, Headway's president and chief operating officer, will retain his position. He said: "With the sale of Whitney, we can focus our efforts on growing the core staffing business. We believe that the separation of the two businesses will be beneficial for Headway as well as Whitney."

Whitney's income for the nine months to the end of September fell $11.5m (€10.4m) to $12.8m, reflecting the depressed state of recruitment in financial services from the same period in 2001. Headway's corporate staffing services also saw turnover drop by $35.4m to $189.3m in the first nine months of 2002.

Headway's share price, quoted on the American Stock Exchange, has ranged between three cents and 35 cents over 52 weeks. On Friday, it was just six cents.

Sources close to Whitney said it did not make sense to be part of a public company in these markets, and that it wanted to ensure that it could reinvest profits towards its management team.

Hall said no redundancies were expected as a result of the acquisition of Futures International as the two businesses were "entirely complementary".