The Bagg Group & Family Business...

 CONTINUITY

FAMILY BUSINESS CONSULTING 

US/CANADA: 877-925-5149 INTERNATIONAL: 1-978-925-5149

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Geoff Bagg never planned to work for his family business. He grew up with the family business ( a Toronto- based employment agency his father started in 1971) surrounding him and promised himself he’d never get involved. However, when Geoff graduated from business school in 1990 in the midst of a horrible recession, his parents convinced him to step in and help out with the company’s struggling temporary staffing division. 

Now more than two decades later, Mr. Bagg is president and chief executive of what’s now known as The Bagg Group and has resisted offers to sell to large multinationals, instead pursuing growth through acquisitions of his own. 

 

After Bagg spent a couple of years working for the business, he refocused the business on the financial services area and expanded to the point where he was able to buy out his parents who retired in 1999. In 2004, the company doubled in size with its acquisition of TOSI Services, another mid-sized Toronto agency, and in November 2011 it snapped up Newmarket, Ont.-based Turn Key Staffing. 

As the company added the new firms and pursued organic growth, it expanded from about 12 employees and $5-million in annual revenue when Mr. Bagg joined, to around 70 workers and revenue expected to top $30-million this year, he says.

The Bagg Group is a mid-sized independent staffing firm in a landscape of hundreds of small shops and a handful of dominant international operations.

Many next generation family members do not want to feel “forced” into taking over the family firm or business, but have an opportunity to do so. Mr. Bagg says remaining family-owned helped foster a more personal culture in his business, which handles full-time placement, temporary staffing and IT consulting.