Results round-up

FTSE 250 recruiter Hays reported a rise in profit for the year to the end of June as net fee grew and the company said it was too early to gauge how Brexit will affect the business.

Net fee income rose to £810.3m from £764.2m, with operating profit up 10% to £181m and pre-tax profit 11% higher at £173m.

Basic earnings per share increased 14% to 8.48p and the company lifted its full-year dividend by 5% to 2.90p per share.

Hays said it saw strong net fee growth of 15% in Continental Europe and Rest of World, but net fees in the UK and Ireland were flat, with trading conditions becoming more challenging as the year progressed.

Chief executive Alistair Cox said: “This is an excellent financial performance, with both earnings and cash ahead of market expectations. We delivered strong, broad-based net fee growth in our international businesses, with 22 countries growing by 10% or more, and an excellent UK profit performance. After three years, we remain in line with our five-year aspiration to broadly double the group's operating profits. We also achieved the significant milestone of eliminating the group's net debt.

Redde shares resumed their climb towards five-and-a-half-year highs after the accident management support services group posted strong final results and said it remains confident about the outlook for the next financial year.

Revenues of £379.2m were generated in the year ended 30 June, rising 52.5% in comparison to last year thanks in part to £61.2m of revenue from incident management specialist FMG, which Redde bought last October.

Excluding sales from FMG, like-for-like sales grew 27.9% due to a 14.3% improvement in credit hires and a 71.1% rise in the number of car repairs.

Group adjusted profit before tax increased by 52.4% to £34.6m, with adjusted operating margin was unchanged at 8.8%.

Excluding FMG, adjusted operating margins improved to 9.2% due to an increase in sales changes in the type of business handled, supply chain improvements and costs control.

Adjusted earnings per share increased to 9.64p from 8.40p in 2015.