25th Sep 2018 10:08
LONDON (Alliance News) - Harvey Nash Group PLC on Tuesday said profit rose in the first half of its current financial year, thanks to acquisitions and growing number of freelancers.
The technology recruitment and outsourcing company said pretax profit grew by 19% to GBP5.3 million in the six months to the end of July compared to GBP4.4 million profit reported a year earlier, as revenue rose by 15% to GBP292.2 million from GBP254.5 million.
The results were driven by the increases in contract recruitment, contract management and IT outsourcing as a result of both organic growth and acquisitions, the company noted.
On the regional basis, the UK and Irish businesses performed well, the company said, benefiting from the Crimson acquisition and strong organic growth. In September last year, Harvey Nash bought IT services & recruitment firm Crimson Ltd for GBP15 million.
Executive and permanent technology recruitment has been affected by the uncertainty in the UK market, the company said, with the number of freelancers increasing over the period by 6.9% to 3,658.
Meanwhile, the Central Europe region performed in line with expectations, emerging from the prior year restructuring.
Growth in Germany was helped by the successful delivery of a material recruitment campaign for the European Central Bank, while Poland also continued to outperform, with freelancers up 48% on the prior year.
Harvey Nash declared an interim dividend of 1.75 pence per share, up 6.5% from 1.64p paid the year before.
"I am pleased that in a challenging market our UK business has increased revenue and delivered a robust financial performance despite declines reported across the recruitment sector in light of uncertainty surrounding the negotiations between the EU and the UK," said Chief Executive Albert Ellis.
"Overall, trading remains in line with the board's expectations for the full year," added Ellis.
Harvey Nash shares were down 1.0% on Tuesday at 127.00 pence each.