RTC Group PLC on Wednesday celebrated its recovery from a difficult financial year, swinging to profit over the first half on ‘buoyant’ business.

For the six months ended June 30, the London-based recruitment company reported pretax profit of £1.0 million, swung from a loss of £406,000 year-on-year.

Revenue rose 33% to £45.6 million from £34.4 million the previous year.

According to RTC, the key driver of this increase was contract revenue, which increased to £43.0 million from £32.1 million. This growth predominantly came from the Rail and Energy divisions, reflecting a step change from results in 2022.

As Chair Bill Douie acknowledged, the Rail business last year was impacted by a combination of ‘the tail end of enhanced costs to comply with Covid restrictions; escalating fuel prices; upfront costs; and other investment activities to establish appropriate management and operational structure for our new operating routes’.

Overall gross profit from contract revenues increased to £6.1 million from £3.7 million.

Basic earnings per share rose to 5.20 pence each, from a loss of 2.43p.

Based on these results, RTC proposed a dividend of 1.0p per share, up from nil the year before.

‘Whilst I have been reluctant in recent years, especially given such turbulent times for the global economy, to propose the payment of dividends, given these excellent results, which represent our

He added: ’We remain cautiously confident that our progress will continue in the second half of 2023. We continue to invest in our businesses and to further strengthen our balance sheet through retained profits.‘

RTC shares more than doubled to 36.80 pence each in London on Wednesday morning.

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