Recruitment company Hays reported a solid set of interim results with 11 per cent growth in net fee income, but the tough outlook led management to cut its dividend by 55 per cent to 0.83p, implying 2.5p for the full year.
88p
Continental Europe and rest of the world reported like-for-like net fee growth of 27 per cent, driven by a strong demand for engineers in Germany. But problems in the banking sector caused like-for-like net fee growth in Asia to slow markedly from 30 to 16 per cent, and plunged the UK into an operating loss. Net debt rose sharply after the final dividend to £177.7m, from £134.8m.
