Trading Update

Empresaria, the global specialist staffing group, today provides an update on trading.

The challenging, industry wide, market conditions that have persisted for the last two years continue to adversely impact the Group with conditions worsening in a number of markets and permanent recruitment demand generally remaining extremely subdued. The third quarter of 2024 did see some slowing of the impact of these conditions on the Group with net fee income down 4% year-on-year (constant currency, excluding exited operations) compared to a 9% year-on-year fall in H1 (constant currency, excluding exited operations). However, despite this relatively good performance in the third quarter, we now expect results in the fourth quarter to be worse than previously forecast with market conditions in Germany particularly challenging, at what is normally a peak time for our operations there, along with a continued deterioration of markets in APAC which in some cases had been relatively resilient. We expect these adverse trading conditions to continue through the first half of 2025. As a result, full year adjusted profit before tax is now expected to be no less than £2.0m.

Our bank has relaxed the interest cover covenant to 3x (normally 4x) for December 2024 testing, ensuring that we expect to remain compliant. As at 30 September, adjusted net debt was £13.6m and available headroom was £6.5m (excluding invoice financing).

We continue to execute on our strategy to simplify the Group, completing the exit from another small operation in the second half with one more nearing completion, and simplifying how we operate while maintaining strong control over costs. We are confident that the actions we have taken, and are taking, will ensure the Group is well positioned to deliver on our growth potential when the market recovers.