LONDON (Alliance News) - Recruiter SThree PLC on Monday said its pretax profit dipped in the first half of its financial year due to restructuring costs and a sluggish UK recruitment market, counteracting growth in revenue and gross profit.
SThree said its pretax profit for the half to the end of May dipped to GBP12.8 million from GBP13.8 million a year earlier. In the half, the group booked one-off charges on the restructuring actions taken in its energy, banking & finance and UK businesses. Excluding those charges, pretax profit grew to GBP15.1 million from GBP13.8 million.
Total revenue for the half grew to GBP443.5 million from GBP403.6 million, while gross profit grew to GBP119.8 million from GBP110.5 million. SThree said it saw very strong growth in the European market in the half and in the US, but the UK market was sluggish in the lead-up to the EU referendum vote, while hiring slowed in the banking and finance segment.
Contract recruitment gross profit grew in the half, but permanent recruitment gross profit fell, despite an improvement in consultant productivity.
SThree declared a flat interim dividend of 4.7 pence.
"Looking ahead, the group's weighting towards the more resilient contract market, where we continue to see good growth momentum, and our diversified portfolio of geographies and sectors, give us confidence that we can optimise our performance, whatever the prevailing market opportunity," said Gary Elden, SThree's chief executive.
Elden added it is too early to assess the impact the UK's vote to leave the European Union will have, but said "the effect on client and candidate confidence in our UK business will become clearer as we trade through our seasonally more important second half."
By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance
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