MidOcean Partners Announces Significant Investment in The Planet Group, a Leading Provider of Outsourced Human Capital and Consulting Services

NEW YORK, January 22, 2018 – MidOcean Partners (“MidOcean”), a premier middle market private equity firm focused on consumer and business services, announced today that it has made a significant investment in The Planet Group (“Planet” or the “Company”), a leading provider of outsourced human capital and consulting services. MidOcean’s investment will be used to accelerate the Company’s strategic initiatives and drive continued growth. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 2009, Planet is a leading provider of specialized outsourced human capital and niche consulting primarily to the life sciences and diversified energy & engineering markets. In recent years, the Company has expanded into the healthcare and digital marketing industries. Planet focuses on providing outsourced human capital for highly skilled positions to pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies, as well as engineers, project managers and project controls professionals to the utility, manufacturing, oil & gas, power engineering and technology sectors. Planet also offers consulting services related to facility optimization and remediation, performance improvement and program and project management to help improve operational and quality environments, ensure compliance with industry standards and control costs.

Planet will continue to be led by founders Michael (“Mike”) Stomberg, CEO, and Timothy (“Tim”) Bauwens, CFO. Both Mike and Tim are industry veterans with a strong history of building successful businesses together. MidOcean’s investment is in partnership with the existing management team and both founders are retaining a significant stake in the Company.

MidOcean is a longtime investor in the outsourced human capital industry, including prior investments in System One, a leading provider of staffing and outsourced services in the engineering, scientific, communications, IT and legal areas which MidOcean exited in October 2016, and Global Knowledge, a world class provider of IT training to corporate clients, which MidOcean exited in January 2015. Within the human capital space, MidOcean focuses on markets with clear secular growth trends, such as pharmaceutical, information technology, engineering and healthcare.

Consistent with its resource-driven investment approach, MidOcean worked closely with its management resources in evaluating Planet, including Jon Chait. Jon is a long-standing staffing industry executive, having held positions as Chairman and CEO of Hudson Global, Inc. (NASDAQ: HHGP) and CFO of Manpower Inc.

Mike Stomberg, Planet Co-Founder and CEO, commented, “MidOcean has tremendous resources and experience building successful business services platforms with founder-owned businesses and a deep understanding of the professional staffing industry which makes them an ideal partner for Planet. This partnership with MidOcean will enable us to dedicate additional resources to build out our existing infrastructure and expand Planet’s offerings into other professional service areas both organically and through M&A activity. We have been very impressed with MidOcean’s collaborative approach to developing and helping implement a growth strategy for Planet. Together, we will be able to take Planet to the next level.”

Elias Dokas, Managing Director at MidOcean, concluded, “We are very excited to partner with Mike and Tim who are proven leaders in the outsourced human capital space. Planet has built an impressive business that has experienced strong growth and we believe there are a number of opportunities to expand the Company’s service offering into other attractive, high margin professional service areas.  In addition, with increased scale and resources, Planet can offer an even greater level of service to all of its highly valued customers across its various end markets.  We are excited to work closely with Planet’s leadership team to capitalize on these opportunities and thoughtfully expand the Company.”

Kirkland & Ellis acted as legal advisor to MidOcean. FocalPoint Partners, LLC acted as exclusive financial advisor and Barack Ferrazzano Kirschbaum & Nagelberg LLP acted as legal advisor to The Planet Group.