Peoplebank Australia shareholders Monday approved A$100 million (US$90 million) in funds to complete its acquisition of Ambit in a bid to make it the number one IT&T recruitment firm in Australia.

PeopleBank managing director, Leon Lau, told shareholders integration of the two businesses provides a leadership team unparalleled within the recruitment industry.

Lau said PeopleBank has over 3500 contractors and a database of over 200,000 candidates.

He highlighted the importance of the database in a skills-short market in which candidates do not apply as readily to job advertisements.

"Peoplebank's finely-tuned database is an essential tool to network amongst Australia's top IT&T professionals," Lau said.

"The company has developed several talent pools of highly sought-after IT&T professionals and with the additional Ambit candidates, these talent pools have grown significantly."

It's the latest in a series of acquisitions for Peoplebank, which purchased leading WA IT&T recruitment firm, Gryphon Consultants in May 2007.

From early February, staff numbers at Peoplebank will increase from 100 to 270.