History
The company in its current form was founded from the 1997 merger between the Benelux staffing firm Unique International B.V. and the publicly traded Goudsmit N.V., a holding company involved in various sectors including recruitment. The enlarged group changed its name to United Services Group N.V. in 2001.
In 2002 United Services Group acquired a controlling stake in the job agency Start Holding, which had been privatised by the Dutch government six years earlier. This was later expanded to full control. The deal gave USG an increased presence in countries such as Spain and Italy.
The company acquired smaller Belgian peer Solvus Resource Group for around €585 million in August 2005, after which it again changed its name to USG People N.V.
In late 2008 the company adopted a "poison pill" defence against potential acquisitors by issuing preference shares to a company foundation.
Read more about this topic: USG People
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To history therefore I must refer for answer, in which it would be an unhappy passage indeed, which should shew by what fatal indulgence of subordinate views and passions, a contest for an atom had defeated well founded prospects of giving liberty to half the globe.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)
“In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)