HireQuest Issues Offer to Board of Directors of TrueBlue, Inc.

Goose Creek, South Carolina based HireQuest, Inc. (Nasdaq: HQI) announced that it has submitted to the Board of Directors of TrueBlue, Inc. (NYSE: TBI) a proposal to acquire certain assets of TrueBlue's People-Ready segment for $105 million in cash.

As previously disclosed, HireQuest made multiple offers to acquire True Blue, Inc. ("TBI") in 2025 at prices ranging from $7.50 to $12.30 per share. Each of those offers, however, was rebuffed by the board of directors of TBI.

As a result, and also as previously disclosed, HQI was prepared to initiate a tender offer directly to the TBI shareholders and incurred substantial costs in preparing such offer. However, prior to commencing the tender, HQI postponed further shareholder-facing communication in the hopes of engaging with the TBI Board directly on a friendly basis regarding a potential deal.

Now, a year after initially making its interest in a transaction public, no deal between HQI and TBI has materialized. HQI officials said they are once again exploring all options with respect to a potential transaction.

"We remain interested in acquiring TrueBlue and especially the on-demand portion of the company's People-Ready segment," Richard Hermanns, CEO of HQI, said in a statement. "We believe the on-demand business is very complimentary to our HireQuest Direct division, and, as a result, we made an attractive all-cash offer earlier today to the TrueBlue Board for them to engage with us in a transaction to sell the on-demand business of TrueBlue's People-Ready segment to us if they prefer to keep TrueBlue as an independent publicly-traded company."

Hermanns added “As we've said in the past, HireQuest's franchise model is uniquely suited to unlock the value in the on-demand portion of People-Ready. This deal could allow TrueBlue to divest of this underperforming segment and raise a substantial amount of cash that could be used to repay debt, grow and diversify its business strategically, or even make a sizeable special dividend to TrueBlue shareholders. Based on disclosures in their most recent proxy statement, this proposal represents $3.45 per share of TrueBlue stock."

HireQuest is a franchisor of staffing solutions with a footprint across the U.S. and international markets. Through its primary divisions - HireQuest Direct, HireQuest Health, Snelling, TradeCorp and DriverQuest - the company delivers temporary, direct-hire, and contract workforce solutions across a range of industries, including construction, light industrial, healthcare, finance, manufacturing, hospitality, logistics and more.