Robert Walters PLC on Thursday said profit and revenue decreased in its latest year, although dividends remained unchanged and it is optimistic.
The London-based recruitment firm said pretax profit for 2023 was £20.8 million, down 63% from £55.6 million in 2022. Basic earnings per share fell 64% to 20.1 pence from 56.2p.
Net fee income fell 10% to £386.8 million from £428.2 million, ‘driven by softening macro-economic conditions in many of the group’s markets’. However, Robert Walters noted that this was ‘against a record prior year comparative’.
Robert Walters also declared an unchanged 17.0p per share final dividend, leaving the total 2023 dividend unchanged at 23.5p.
‘In what was a challenging year right across our industry, I’m very proud of the contributions of our people over the last 12 months,’ commented Chief Executive Toby Fowlston. ‘The international diversification of our business underpinned our resilient performance in 2023, despite labour demand contracting sharply across our markets.’
Looking ahead, Robert Walters said that trading conditions ‘remained muted’ during the first few weeks of 2024, ‘albeit with some isolated pockets of growth’.
However, Fowlston added: ‘We have begun to undertake initiatives to significantly strengthen our business, which we expect to gain further traction over the medium-term.
‘Our collective experience trading through previous market cycles tells us that when conditions do improve, the inflection can be rapid, and we therefore have strong conviction in our decision to maintain our core consultant capacity, whilst sensibly managing our cost base.’
Shares in Robert Walters were up 1.9% at 421.00p each on Thursday afternoon in London.
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