A difficult UK public sector market, combined with unfavourable exchange rates hasn’t stopped Aim-traded recruiter Impellam (IPEL) from reporting what analysts described as a “resilient” set of half-year results.
A strong performance from the managed services segment across the UK, Europe and Australasia helped offset difficulties elsewhere, specifically when it came to net fee income from managed services and specialist staffing across the US. The latter was hurt by reduced volumes in the automotive sector as well as a candidate shortfall. At home, specialist staffing across the healthcare and education sectors was also held back by government costs, candidate shortages and the introduction of new tax legislation. But ignoring these factors, gross profits from this segment rose by 5 per cent.
Chief executive Julia Robertson is confident the group can keep growing its managed services business globally. The group won 14 new contracts across the UK, Europe and Australasia in the first half alone, which helped take healthcare managed services gross profits up by a whopping 49 per cent.
Analysts at Cenkos expect adjusted pre-tax profits of £50.5m and EPS of 82.4p for 2018, compared to £45.8m and 73.8p in 2017.
| IMPELLAM (IPEL) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 467p | MARKET VALUE: | £ 234m | |
| TOUCH: | 460-474p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 699p | LOW: 440p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 2.9% | PE RATIO: | 8 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 542p* | NET DEBT: | 29% | |
| Half-year to 29 June | Turnover (£bn) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
| 2017 | 1.08 | 12.1 | 20.9 | 7.00 |
| 2018 | 1.11 | 12.2 | 21.0 | nil |
| % change | +3 | +1 | - | - |
| Ex-div: | na | |||
| Payment: | na | |||
| *Includes intagible assets of £293m or 584p a share | ||||
