EMPRESARIA GROUP PLC (EMR) — Interim Results Webinar

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to EMPRESARIA investor presentation relating to the half year results to August 23. Thank you very much. Indeed, I'd now like to hand over to CEO, Verona Driggs. Hello, welcome, and thank you for attending our twenty twenty three half year results call. Let's start with the quick overview on the first half. We have experienced challenging market conditions from H2 twenty twenty two that continued into 2023, which has impacted our net fee income. Our net fee income reduced 9% year on year against a strong comparator. Offshore services was up 15%, permanent placement down 24%, and temporary and contract down 8%. Adjusted operating profit was down 71% year on year, reflecting a higher starting cost base following 2022 investment and inflationary pressures. This also comes off the back of a strong h one last year. Measures to improve and manage cost base were taken in q two with benefit that will be started started to be realized in half two. Our adjusted diluted loss per share of 0.8 p reflecting the strong contribution from offshore services where there's a 28% non controlling interest. Our adjusted net debt increased slightly to 8,700,000 from 7,900,000 end of twenty twenty two with headroom increased to 18,400,000. Key themes, which I will go into on the next slide, are really challenging market conditions across the board, managing our cost base, continued strength in offshore services, and continuing to deliver on our strategic initiatives. So the trends we saw and started to see in 2022 in the last half continued into 2023. We haven't seen any significant or sustained signs of improvement. Client and candidate confidence is low, and we've had a lot of false starts. So, hopefully, again, if this if there's no signif...