BIA joins Alexander Hughes

International recruiting company Alexander Hughes, based in Paris, has recently bought Romanian Business Intelligence Agency (BIA), dealing in the same industry, as part of its expansion to Eastern Europe.
Alexander Hughes Group chairman Maurice Rozet says Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Poland are becoming more and more attractive as markets and will absorb major investments from the West over the next few years due to their upcoming EU accession. Under the circumstances, the companies that will come from the West will need people to run their operations.
“Alexander Hughes International has clients expanding to Eastern Europe and is merely following them,” George Butunoiu, former owner of BIA and current managing partner of Alexander Hughes Romania told Ziarul Financiar. “Our biggest gain from integration is the international opening. Alexander Hughes operates in 30 countries, such as Canada, USA and Central European states and is now expanding to Eastern Europe,” Butunoiu added. He declined specifying the exact value of the transaction.
Butunoiu says the new company will primarily focus on top management recruiting. “We want to recruit fewer but more expensive people because this way we can allocate more time and more resources for our clients,” he added. The Alexander Hughes Romania manager says long talks with the “parent company” were carried out about the tariffs to charge. “Alexander Hughes’ minimal tariff is $35,000, which it wanted to impose in Romania, as well. We talked with them and came to a minimal tariff of $8,000 for the first six months in business, just to see how things go. The tariffs are at least twice higher in its Budapest or Prague offices,” Butunoiu said.
Business Intelligence Agency was established in 1992 and came to several hundreds of thousands of dollars in turnover. “I got in my car and travelled across Europe to find a partner. I discussed with many companies that told me to go and set up my own firm first and then come back for talks. And this is what I did,” Butunoiu recalls. He took another trip around Europe to find a partner in 1994. Since the major recruitment companies were not interested in doing business in Romania, Butunoiu got an answer from Austria-based executive search Jenewein company with which it concluded a franchise contract. “I established a separate firm and BIA was sidelined for a year. With the new name, I doubled prices and got even more contracts,” he says. He resumed his European tour in 1995 and met those at Alexander Hughes International. “I discussed with them in Paris and then became an associated office until early this month when they decided to enter the Romanian market directly,” Butunoiu said.
miruna.lebedencu@zf.ro