Staffline Share News (STAF)

Temporary staff provider Staffline said it made an encouraging start to 2011 and remains well placed for another year of solid progress.For the six months ended 30 June 2011 revenues increased 45% to £120.9m. Pre-tax profit was up 38% to £2.9m from the same period last year. Gross margins rose to 11.8% from 11.2% before, following the effect of the move in to Welfare to Work.Commenting on the outlook chief executive Andy Hogarth said, "The group continues to trade well, broadly driven by a combination of bolt-on acquisitions and our OnSite model generating strong organic revenue opportunities.""We continue to see robust levels of new business enquiries for our services and more importantly, our customer acquisition and retention levels remain strong," it said.Staffline has net cash of £2.4m compared to net debt of £4.8m. An interim dividend of 2.9p has been offered, up by 21% from a year earlier.Staffline said, "The integration of the newly acquired EOS business continues as planned and we remain excited about the long-term prospects of this business as the Welfare to Work arena continues to be at the heart of government policy."---CJ