Blackstone announced Jan. 3 that private equity funds affiliated with Blackstone have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Tradesmen International, LLC, an agency-based provider of outsourced skilled craftsmen to non-residential construction and industrial contractors in North America, from Wellspring. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Tradesmen pioneered the concept of outsourcing skilled trade labor in the early 1990s and today is the leading national provider, serving more than 12,000 small to medium sized businesses and a growing number of leading engineering and construction firms. Tradesmen has the largest outsourced skilled craftsmen workforce in the United States.