LONDON (Alliance News) - Specialist recruiter SThree PLC said Monday it is focusing more on contract hires than permanent recruitment, as its full-year profit dipped slightly.
SThree reported a pretax profit of GBP37.3 million for its financial year ended November 30, 2016, down by 1% from GBP37.7 million the prior year.
The specialist technology, science and engineering recruitment company added that, when adjusted for restructuring costs and exceptional gains, its pretax profit for the financial year was GBP40.8 million, stable from the prior year.
SThree's revenue for the financial year rose by 13% to GBP959.9 million from GBP848.8 million, although the rise was 6% when adjusted for currency movements.
Adjusted gross profit grew by 2% year-on-year, with Contract gross profit up by 8% but Permanent gross profit down by 8%. SThree said it has focused more on growing its Contract business in response to trading conditions.
The company also said it saw "robust growth" in its ICT and Engineering operations but more difficult trading in the Energy and Banking & Finance sectors.
SThree's total dividend for the financial year was unchanged from the prior year at 14.0 pence.
"The group delivered a solid overall performance in what was a challenging financial year. Our strategic approach of diversifying by region and sector, with a key focus on growing our Contract business, has added resilience to our earnings, enabling us to weather the political and economic uncertainties that we have faced through 2016," said Gary Elden, chief executive officer of SThree.
"Looking ahead, the heightened level of political and economic uncertainty remains the primary feature of our trading outlook. Against this backdrop we will continue to focus on the Contract market, where we see attractive growth opportunities and which is more resilient in periods of economic uncertainty. As we have done in 2016, we will pay close attention to productivity and underlying costs," added Elden.
Share in SThree were down 1.7% at 316.50p Monday morning.
By Adam Clark; adamclark@alliancenews.com
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