Another week, another chapter in the tumultuous history of Correlate, né Alexander Mann Financial Markets, known briefly as Akamai Financial Markets, formerly private, once public, now private again.

This week it emerged that Hexagon Human Capital, the holding company for Correlate had been put into administration, only to promptly emerge phoenix-like as a new holding company backed by Barclays Ventures.

Correlate’s senior management profess pleasure with its latest incarnation: “Unless there’s a very significant market capitalisation and a strong underlying volume or contractor/interim book that provides a high level of guaranteed annuity revenue streams, it’s difficult to find an example of a single recruitment plc where being public is a good thing,” says managing director Gavin Bonnet.

“Small businesses whose revenues are likely to be “spiky” because of the cyclical nature of the markets in which they work in, are better off being outside of public gaze,” he adds.

Correlate’s past has involved much spikiness. Founded in 1994 as Alexander Mann Financial Markets, it was acquired by Hat Pin in 2006, and rebranded as Akamai Financial Markets. Hatpin then sold Akamai to Hexagon for 1 in 2008 following the revelation of accounting errors at a subsidiary, and Hexagon promptly rebranded it Correlate.

Despite the various tribulations, Bonnet points out that most of the headhunters they employ have stuck around: “The average length of service of our consultants within the company is upwards of 8 years.”