Once again, recruiter Robert Walters (RWA) has bucked the sector trend of UK weakness. Net fee income for the UK business was up 20 per cent to £48.3m. The strongest activity levels were seen in London’s financial services, commercial finance and technology sectors, although management said an exodus of multinationals into the regions was helping to drive performance in places such as Manchester, Milton Keynes and St Albans.
The strength of the resource solutions business, which provides outsourcing services for a number of human resources functions including recruitment, is a key reason for this outperformance. The business won new clients across Asia Pacific and the UK during the half year.
The group performed similarly well across its other regions, delivering a record first-half operating profit of £16.2m, up 62 per cent. As has also been seen recently with rival SThree (STHR), Europe, Australia and North America gave a particularly strong showing. Europe’s net fee income was up 34 per cent to £38m, with the best results coming out of France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain. Group headcount, which is usually a good indicator of growth, increased 20 per cent to 3,495, but chief executive Robert Walters warned that resource solutions could skew these numbers, as new contracts can require a large number of additional hires.
Analysts at Panmure Gordon are forecasting adjusted profit before tax of £32.9m, giving EPS of 32.9p for the year to the end of December 2017 (from £25.8m and 22.7p in 2016).
| ROBERT WALTERS (RWA) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 450p | MARKET VALUE: | £335m | |
| TOUCH: | 445-453p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 470p | LOW: 285p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 2% | PE RATIO: | 13 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 139p | NET CASH: | £18.4m | |
| Half-year to 30 Jun | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
| 2016 | 451 | 11.2 | 10.6 | 2.30 |
| 2017 | 563 | 15.6 | 16.3 | 2.75 |
| % change | +25 | +39 | +54 | +20 |
| Ex-div: | 31 Aug | |||
| Payment: | 01 Sep |
