The list of industries that need staffing help ranges from restaurants to healthcare. You can add temporary staffing to that mix. Jay Hegenbart, founder and managing partner of New York-based Infinedi Partners told us why.

“Staffing is a hot area in private equity and there’s a been a lot of recent transactions,” Hegenbart tells Mergers & Acquisitions. “The reason the space is hot because PE in the last several years has made a lot of money in staffing.” FFL Partners investment in Optomi Professional Services and Osceola Capital-backed Talent Group’s acquisition of EdgeLink are a couple of other recent PE staffing deals.

Businesses that offer longer staffing durations and are able to bill higher are the most attractive to PE, Hegenbart adds, especially in temporary staffing in the accounting and finance sectors.

Hegenbart founded Infinedi in 2018. The PE firm complete five platform investments over the last two years and now manages over $300 million in assets. Before , Hegenbart was an executive at Harvest Partners.

On Monday, Infinedi invested in Chicago-based LaSalle Network. LaSalle, founded in 1998, is a staffing and recruiting firm that focuses on the technology, cybersecurity, accounting and finance industries, among others. The target has placed more than 80,000 people in temporary, temporary-to-permanent and permanent positions.

“Companies have a demonstrated a preference for a flexible workforce, especially on a project-based basis,” Hegenbart adds. The temporary staffing sector is fragmented, Hegenbart says, and any fragmented industry will always be attractive to PE.

Demitri Diakantonis