10th Jun 2014 11:11
LONDON (Alliance News) - Penna Consulting PLC Tuesday reported lower pretax profit in its most recent financial year, after booking GBP2.6 million in costs during the year from buying Savile Group PLC and integrating the business into the rest of the group.
The human resources consulting company posted a pretax profit of only GBP83,000 for the year ended March 31, compared with a pretax profit of GBP2.5 million the prior year, after booking GBP2.6 million in exceptional costs associated with the acquisition of UK based HR consultancy Savile Group, which it acquired in December last year. The costs included acquisition expenses, redundancy expenses, surplus property and other costs.
Excluding these exceptional costs, the group said its operating profit rose to GBP2.7 million, from GBP2.6 million the prior year.
Revenues for the year increased to GBP69.0 million, higher than the GBP65.5 million in revenue reported a year earlier.
"During the year we gained some major new clients and with them and existing clients planned a series of projects to be implemented during 2014/5," said Chairman Stephen Rowlinson in a statement.
Penna Consulting said that trading so far in the new financial year has seen encouraging trends, with all of its businesses showing improvements. Signalling its confidence in the outlook for the business, the company declared a total dividend for the year of 3 pence, up from the 2 pence dividend it paid out the prior year.
"We are planning for 2014/15 to be a year of growth in our existing business streams while we will continue to look for further acquisition opportunities," said Rowlinson.
Penna Consulting said its operating profit in the year just ended was boosted by Recruitment Solutions, although it said the trading performance was somewhat offset by a drop in the contribution from HR Consulting, following the closure of its loss-making operations in Northern Ireland.
"As previously announced our business in Northern Ireland became loss making following the completion of a major long-term contract, and it had to be closed," the company said.
The company said its Recruitment business continued to grow strongly, accounting for over 41% of net revenue in the year just ended. It also said that Savile has already made a positive contribution to profits.
Penna Consulting shares were up 3.5% at 118.00 pence Tuesday midday.
By Rowena Harris-Doughty; [email protected]; @rharrisdoughty
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