PageGroup brushes off Brexit woes and lavishes shareholders

Recruitment firm PageGroup swatted aside Brexit worries and lavished the cash on shareholders on Wednesday, lifting its interim dividend by 5% and coughing up its fourth consecutive special payout.

However, the company warned that "Brexit-related uncertainty continued to impact decision-making from clients and candidates “at more senior levels of the market”.

Pre-tax profits increased 18.1% to £67.2m on the back of an 11.7% rise in revenue to £751.6m. The interim dividend was increased to 4.1p a share along with a special payout of 12.73p a share.

Currency headwinds hit gross profit by £6m and operating profit by £1m, PageGroup said.

Chief executive Steve Ingham said there remained challenges for the group, “including Brexit in the UK, trading in Catalonia and forthcoming elections in Latin America”.

Revenue in the UK, which represents 18% of the group gross profits, declined 3.5% to £155m and gross profit slipped 4.6% to £69.7m, with

Page Personnel, which has a higher proportion of temporary recruitment, grew 3%, while Michael Page, which is focused on more senior candidates, declined 7%, the company said.

In Asia Pacific, representing 19% of group first half gross profit, revenue increased 7.5% in reported rates to £125.6m and gross profit increased 11.1% to £74.1m. In constant currency, revenue increased 13% in the first half and gross profit increased by 16.1%.

"In Asia, we have two of our Large, High Potential markets, Greater China and South East Asia, as well as two other large recruitment markets, India and Japan, in which we continue to invest heavily. As a result, we grew fee earner headcount by 36% year-on-year, which in part helped us to achieve gross profit growth of 20%," Page said.

"In addition, in the Asia Pacific region we have opened 3 new offices, Chengdu, in the west of China, Canberra in Australia and our first office in Vietnam, in Ho Chi Minh City."

In the Americas, representing 14% of group first half gross profit, revenue increased 12.1% in reported rates to £81.3m , while gross profit increased 14.2% to £57.3m. In constant currency, revenue increased by 22.6% and gross profit increased by 24.9%.

"North America saw growth of 22% in both the US and Canada. In the US, we continued to invest, with fee earner headcount up 32 or 9% in H1, following the increase of 64 or 21% in 2017," the company said.

"We saw particularly strong performances from our offices outside of New York, which now represent 54% of the US, a proportion that has grown by around 50% since 2015, and which grew 31% collectively."