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(Alliance News) - PageGroup PLC on Wednesday paid a special dividend for the fifth consecutive interim period, following a rise in profit for the first half of 2019.
For the six years to the end of June, the FTSE 250-listed recruitment firm reported an 11% rise in pretax profit to GBP74.6 million from GBP67.2 million the year before.
Revenue grew by 9.2% to GBP820.5 million from GBP751.6 million the prior year. On a constant currency basis, revenue was up by 9.5%.
The fee earner's headcount, however, fell by 1.3% to 6,035, mainly because of challenging market conditions in regions such as the UK, France, and Greater China.
A 4.3% rise in the operational support staff headcount gave PageGroup a total headcount of 7,763, up 4.1% from 7,457 the year before.
PageGroup declared an interim dividend of 4.30 pence per share, up 4.9% from 4.10p the year before. The group also issued a special dividend of 12.73p, in line with the prior year.
"We are pleased with our first-half performance, however, we remain mindful of challenging macro-economic conditions seen in a number of our regions. We will continue to focus on driving profitable growth while continuing our strategic investments towards our Vision of 10,000 headcount, GBP1 billion of gross profit and GBP200 million to GBP250 million of operating profit," said Chief Financial Officer Kelvin Bragg.
Shares in PageGroup were up 2.0% at 448.80 pence on Wednesday.
