Staffline Regulatory News (STAF)

THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONTAINS INSIDE INFORMATION AS STIPULATED UNDER THE MARKET ABUSE REGULATION (EU NO. 596/2014) AS IT FORMS PART OF UK DOMESTIC LAW BY VIRTUE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION (WITHDRAWAL) ACT 2018 ("MAR").

1 August 2023

Staffline Group plc

("Staffline" or the "Company")

Launch of Share Buyback

Staffline Group plc, the recruitment and training group, today announces its intention to make a series of share repurchases with a view to returning up to £4.0 million to shareholders (the "Share Buyback").

The Group remains disciplined in its allocation of capital with the main objective being to enhance shareholder value. We continuously assess our medium-term plans which take account of growth prospects, investment in the Republic of Ireland branch network, cash generation, net borrowings, and leverage. Therefore, the amount allocated to buybacks is based on our predicted trading cash flows and financing headroom.

Following the announcement of the 2023 interim results, the Board believes the current time presents a good opportunity to make share purchases. The Company has delivered two years of underlying operating profits of at least £10m and net debt (pre IFRS16) has reduced to £3.5 million at 30 June 2023 (30 June 2022: £9.7 million) through retained earnings and improvements in working capital. In addition, average borrowings are on a downward trend. Consequently, the Company has substantial headroom under its available debt facilities.

Accordingly, the Company today announces the launch of the Share Buyback, to repurchase ordinary shares in the capital of the Company (the "Ordinary Shares") up to an aggregate value of £4.0 million. The Ordinary Shares purchased pursuant to the Share Buyback will be cancelled.

The Share Buyback will be operated in accordance with the terms of the Company's general authority to repurchase Ordinary Shares granted by shareholders at its annual general meeting (the "AGM"), held on 12 June 2023.

In accordance with the authority granted at the AGM, a) the aggregate number of Ordinary Shares to be repurchased will not exceed 16,576,772; b) the minimum price which may be paid for each Ordinary Share will be £0.10; and c) the maximum price (excluding expenses) which may be paid for each Ordinary Share will be the higher of: (i) an amount equal to 105 per cent of the average of the middle market quotations for the Ordinary Shares as derived from the AIM Appendix of the Daily Official List of London Stock Exchange plc for the five business days immediately preceding the day on which the purchase is made; and (ii) an amount equal to the higher of the price of the last independent trade of an Ordinary Share and the highest current independent bid for an Ordinary Share on the trading venue where the purchase is carried out.

Shareholders should be aware that a purchase of Ordinary Shares by the Company on any trading day may represent a significant proportion of the daily trading volume in the Ordinary Shares and could exceed 25 per cent. of the average daily trading volume of the preceding 20 business days. Should that be the case, the Company could exceed the pricing and/or volume restrictions as established by the Commission Delegated Regulation 2016/1052/EU (as in force in the UK and as amended by the FCA's Technical Standards (Market Abuse Regulation) (EU Exit) Instrument 2019) (the "Regulation") and therefore the Share Buy-back may not fall within the safe harbour provisions of the Regulation.

As part of the Share Buyback, Liberum has been appointed to purchase the Ordinary Shares as principal.

For further information please contact:

Market Abuse Regulation:

For the purposes of MAR, Article 2 of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/1055 and the UK version of such implementing regulation, the person responsible for arranging for the release of this Announcement on behalf of the Company is Daniel Quint, Chief Financial Officer.

About Staffline

Providing workforce solutions

Staffline is the UK's market leading Recruitment and Training group. It has three divisions:

Recruitment GB

Staffline is a leading provider of flexible blue collar workers, supplying c.31,000 staff per day on average to around 400 client sites, across a wide range of industries including agriculture, supermarkets, drinks, driving, food processing, logistics and manufacturing.

Recruitment Ireland 

The Recruitment Ireland business is a leading end to end solutions provider operating across twenty industries, ten branch locations and ten onsite customer locations, supplying c.4,500 staff per day on average, and offering RPO, MSP, temporary and permanent solutions across the island of Ireland.

PeoplePlus

Staffline is the leading adult skills and training provider in the UK, delivering adult education, prison education and skills-based employability programmes across the country.