LON:PAGE PageGroup H2 2024 Earnings Report GBX 254 -1.20 (-0.47%) As of 04/17/2025 11:50 AM Eastern Earnings HistoryForecast PageGroup EPS ResultsActual EPSGBX 9.10Consensus EPS N/ABeat/MissN/AOne Year Ago EPSN/APageGroup Revenue ResultsActual RevenueN/AExpected RevenueN/ABeat/MissN/AYoY Revenue GrowthN/APageGroup Announcement DetailsQuarterH2 2024Date3/6/2025TimeBefore Market OpensConference Call DateThursday, March 6, 2025Conference Call Time3:30AM ETConference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptSlide DeckInterim ReportEarnings HistoryCompany ProfileSlide DeckFull Screen Slide DeckPowered by PageGroup H2 2024 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrMarch 6, 2025 ShareLink copied to clipboard.There are 6 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Page Group twenty twenty four full year results presentation. I'm Nick Kirk, Chief Executive Officer and on the call with me is Kelvin Stagg, Chief Financial Officer. Market conditions remain challenging across all regions in 2024 with worsening sentiment and reduced confidence in Europe during the second half of the year. Despite the year on year decline in gross profit and operating profit, we saw good activity levels throughout the year. Operator00:00:30The conversion of interviews to accepted offers remains the most significant area of challenge as ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty continues to impact candidate and client confidence which extends the time to hire. We remain committed to our strategy, and I will update you on our progress later in the presentation. I will now hand you over to Kelvin to take you through our financial review. Speaker 100:00:55Thanks, Nick, and good morning, everybody. Although I would not read it through, I'd just like to make reference to the legal formalities that are covered in the cautionary statement in the appendix of this presentation and which will also be available on our website following the call. In 2024, the group delivered gross profit of million, down 12.8% in constant currencies against 2023 due to the ongoing challenging trading conditions. We delivered operating profit of million down from million and our conversion rate was 6.2% compared to 11.8. Earnings per share was 9.1p and and we ended the year at a strong financial position with net cash of million compared with million at the end of twenty twenty three. Speaker 100:01:47Today, the board has proposed an increase in the final dividend of 4.5% to 11.75p per share, reflecting its confidence in the continued strategic opportunities of the group as well as the strength of our balance sheet. Combined with the interim dividend of 5.36p, this represents a total dividend of 17.11p. I will now move on to the financial review. This productivity chart demonstrates how we have managed our Fionna headcount in response to movements in gross profit. As trading conditions deteriorated through 2024, we reduced our Fionna headcount by 8.2% from 5,851 in Q4 twenty twenty three to 5 thousand 3 hundred and 70 in Q4 twenty twenty four. Speaker 100:02:37In line with our strategy and to maximize productivity, we also reviewed underperforming business lines and reallocated Feona's to more profitable roles and markets. As a result of our decisive action on headcount, gross profit per Feona, our measure of productivity remained at elevated levels in 2024, down only 1.7% in constant currencies on 2023 and significantly above pre pandemic levels. In 2024, given the tough trading conditions we continue to experience, we implemented a number of initiatives to reduce our cost base. Overall, our 2024 cost base was around million less than in 2023, driven by savings in Fionna headcount, bonuses and our Global Business Solutions or GBS functions. We continue to review our Fionna headcount, making progress on our strategy by reallocating resources into the areas of the business where we see the most significant long term structural opportunities as well as ensuring it remains aligned to activity levels we are seeing in each of our markets. Speaker 100:03:44Afiona headcount has now reduced by 24% or around 1,700 from its peak in Q3 twenty twenty two. This reduction was largely by natural attrition and shows our team profit share business model in operation. Our operational costs reduced in line with this reduction in headcount. Our team based profit share model means that the bonus cost varies in response to profits rather than the commission structure that is directly linked to revenue. In line with the tougher trading and consequent drop in profit in 2024, bonuses reduced by around million compared to 2023. Speaker 100:04:23In 2024, we also implemented a number of programs to refine our future cost base. During the year, we relocated our U. K. And Singapore shared service centers with the transition of activities to Barcelona, Buenos Aires and Kuala Lumpur. These initiatives incurred one off cost in 2024 of around million and will deliver cost savings in 2025 of around million, dollars increasing to $6,000,000 in 2026. Speaker 100:04:51Within GBS, headcount was broadly flat over the course of the year, partly due to the double running of around 65 heads at the end of the year due to the aforementioned transition of our Singapore Shared Shared Service Center. We also focused on our third party spend, meaning that overall, we reduced our GBS cost base by 5% compared to 2023 despite the high inflationary environment in which we are operating. Additional initiatives consolidated our office portfolio and reducing our overall operational spend. We continue to review our cost base and adapt in response to market conditions. Despite challenging market conditions, we delivered operating profit of $52,400,000 in 2024. Speaker 100:05:37Our conversion rate decreased from 11.8% to 6.2%. Looking at each of our regions starting with our largest EMEA representing 55% of the group, gross profit decreased by 13.4% in constant currencies on 2023. EMEA delivered the group's highest conversion rate of 13.2%. This was reflective of the region experiencing more resilient trading conditions through the first half of twenty twenty four. However, market conditions weakened during the second half due mainly to softer trading in a number of European countries and particularly in our two largest markets, France and Germany. Speaker 100:06:17In The Americas representing 18% of the group, gross profit decreased by 9.9% and our conversion rate decreased to 4.7%. Latin America saw some strong performances, particularly in Brazil and Colombia. Despite the tougher trading conditions in North America, we maintained our Fianna platform in anticipation of an improvement in market conditions. In Asia Pacific representing 15% of the group, gross profit declined 17% due primarily to the ongoing challenging market conditions, particularly in Greater China. We had a negative conversion rate of 6.6% as a result of the tougher trading conditions across the region as well as the one off costs incurred due to the transition of our shared service center from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. Speaker 100:07:04Excluding this and some restructuring costs in China, the region was broadly breakeven. In The U. K, representing 12% of the group, gross profit declined 16.2% on 2023. Despite the tough market conditions, The U. K. Speaker 100:07:20Trading tax charge for the year was million. The tax charge for the year was million, which represented an effective tax rate of 42.1%. The higher tax rate was due largely to the derecognition of overseas losses, which increased the rate by 8%. In 2025, the effective tax rate is expected to be around 35%. Our balance sheet position remains strong. Speaker 100:07:59Trade and other receivables decreased by 64,900,000.0, driven by the reduced levels of trading activity and continued strong levels of cash collection. After returning a total of 52,000,000 to shareholders by way of ordinary dividends in 2024, net cash at the end of the year was million. Overall, net assets decreased million to million. This slide shows the key movements in our cash through the year. Our EBITDA inflow was million and the unwind of working capital also increased net cash by million. Speaker 100:08:42Tax and net interest payments were 17,900,000.0. Net capital expenditure was 15,800,000.0 for the year, lower than 2023 due to reduced spend on office fit house. Payments made in relation to lease liabilities reduced cash by 40,600,000.0 and share option exercises in 2024 remained low due to the subdued share price. The group also purchased shares costing million in March into the Employ Benefit Trust to hedge our liabilities under the group's share plans. The largest outflow of cash totaling million was dividends. Speaker 100:09:22The overall impact of these cash flows was to increase the group's net cash position by million to 95,300,000.0 at the end of the year. Overall, despite the tougher trading conditions in 2024, we delivered a pretax cash conversion rate of over 100%. The group operates a highly cash generative business model with very high levels of cash conversion. We have a clear capital allocation strategy with three defined and well established uses of cash. The first is to satisfy the operational investment requirements of the group, such as investing in additional headcounts and continuing to roll out technology as well as the hedge liabilities under the group share plans. Speaker 100:10:06The second is for the payment of ordinary dividends, where our policy is to maintain these through a downturn, which we've done in all years apart from the pandemic and to increase them when trading conditions are more favorable. Finally, any remaining cash surplus is to be distributed to shareholders by way of a supplementary return. Today, the group announced the proposed final ordinary dividend of 11.75p per share, an increase of 4.5% on 2023. Subject to shareholder approval at the AGM, this will be paid on the June 23 to shareholders on the register as at the May 16. When combined with the interim dividend of 5.36p per share, this gives a total ordinary dividend for the year of 17.11p. Speaker 100:10:52At the year end share price, this represents a total dividend yield of 5%. I will now hand you over to Nick to take you through our strategic review. Operator00:11:03Thanks, Kelvin. We launched our strategy in September 2023 with three key strategic goals: delivering operating profit of million, changing 1,000,000 lives and increasing our Net Promoter Score to over 60. Since we launched the strategy, market conditions have been challenging. But despite this, we continue to make progress on our strategic goals to position the group when trading improves. I will talk about this in more detail later in the presentation. Operator00:11:37Against our social impact goal of changing 1,000,000 lives, we performed strongly. In 2024, we changed over 130,000 lives, meaning that in total, we've changed over 640,000 since 2020, putting us well on track to deliver our target by 02/1930. Progress in this area is measured by the number of people whose lives we've changed by placing them into work as well as the number of people who access programs we run that support traditionally underrepresented groups accessing employment. We made excellent progress to achieve our customer experience goal by reaching a client Net Promoter Score of 61 from our baseline of 52 in 2022. This highlights our commitment to providing excellent service to our customers, further cementing our position as a benchmark of quality in our industry. Operator00:12:30Our strategy prioritizes delivering what we are famous for, building on our existing strengths and leveraging our established global platform. Our broad based global platform provides multiple opportunities for accelerated growth as conditions improve. We are successfully diversified across 36 countries with no single market representing more than 15% of the group. Therefore, we are well placed to benefit from market recovery wherever it comes. We have a clear focus on what we do best at both the country and the city level, growing our business in areas where we see the greatest future potential. Operator00:13:11To achieve our strategy, we have four pillars of growth: our core business, our technology discipline, Page Executive and Enterprise Solutions, which supports our strategic customers with their complex global requirements. We continue to maximize our core business under our Michael Page and Page Personnel brands, building on our previous investment strategy to strengthen our market leading position with a focus on profitable growth. Our technology business is a scale play, enabling us to build a high value, high volume business in what for us is already a significant market. Page Executive is a market gap play, specializing in senior leadership search and recruitment as well as offering executive advisory services. Enterprise Solutions is a partnership play as we build out our capabilities and breadth of offering to create long term mutual value with our strategic customers. Operator00:14:09I will now give you a brief update on the progress we have made within our four pillars of growth. Within the core business, trading conditions have been challenging in the majority of our markets. During periods of market uncertainty, clients often seek more flexible options in non permanent recruitment. And as a result, it tends to out perform permanent. As seen previously during the global financial crisis and again during the pandemic when the market starts to show early signs of recovery compared to our peers our higher level of operational gearing due to our predominantly permanent recruitment business allows us to recover rapidly. Operator00:14:50In response to the tougher macroeconomic conditions, we continue to review our business operations, reallocating resource into areas where we see the greatest future potential. As part of this repositioning, we reviewed disciplines that were less profitable and transferred consultants to more productive roles. For example, in Japan, we had a business across multiple disciplines and brands. This meant that we operated in many markets without achieving significant levels of penetration or market share. In line with our strategy, we've simplified the operating model to position the business for accelerated longer term growth with three key areas of focus as a specialist technology recruiter in the domestic Nikkei market, as a dedicated contracting recruiter across technology and finance, and finally, building on our existing strength as a perm recruiter in the bilingual, bicultural Gaisky market. Operator00:15:45This is one example of many where we have executed our strategy, streamlining and refocusing the business into markets we believe will offer us long term growth at conversion rates in line with or above our target. As has been widely reported, the technology sector has experienced challenging conditions over the past two years. Despite this, technology remains our second largest discipline and we continue to see a highly dynamic sector with demand for skills changing rapidly, particularly in areas such as cyber, AI, machine learning and big data. In 2024, we were pleased to see growth in 11 of our markets, including Brazil, India and Mexico. We also saw further diversification into non permanent recruitment, which represented 41% of technology gross profit in 2024, up from 36% in 2023. Operator00:16:40Page Executive continues to deliver the standout results of the group with growth of 7%. This was a record year globally as well as in individual markets such as France, Germany, Italy, Mexico and Japan. It has become clear since we launched the strategy that the market gap opportunity is greater than initially anticipated and our customers have welcomed our modern, agile approach to senior leadership search, executive recruitment and advisory services. We have a highly experienced and proven team of around 300 fee earners in Page Executive with an average tenure of seven years at Page and fourteen years in the recruitment industry. Within Enterprise Solutions, which is our business focused on strategic customers, we have successfully transitioned from a regional to a global structure, aligning our leadership, sales and account management teams as we seek to best serve our largest clients. Operator00:17:36In 2024, against the backdrop of a difficult macro, we generated 7% more gross profit from our largest 20 clients than we did in our record year in 2022. Despite the underperformance of the overall recruitment outsourcing sector, we have seen good growth in our page outsourcing business. Enterprise Solutions plays a significant role in responding to evolving client demands and due to our broad based platform across 36 markets, it represents an opportunity for the group to accelerate growth across all geographies and all segments of the market. We remain focused on winning business that delivers conversion rates in line with our strategy. Technology and AI have impacted our industry positively in recent years, offering a host of benefits, including increased efficiency and automation. Operator00:18:27We first started talking to you about our AI journey AI journey at our Capital Markets event in 2018 and since then we've been collaborating with the most significant players in big tech to develop safe and secure cutting edge technology and AI systems for everyday use by our consultants. We are harnessing the potential of AI to improve all stages of the recruitment process from initial candidate and client attraction to ongoing customer engagement. Our tools do the heavy lifting for our consultants, increasing business efficiency and allowing them to do what they do best, build human connections and customer relationships to deliver exceptional results. Our proprietary platforms, Page Insights and Customer Connect, alongside our AI systems, are industry leading. Jade, our AI driven job advert generator allows our consultants to create a well written and high performing advert in a fraction of the time it took previously. Operator00:19:26Our Time Enroll product uses AI to more accurately predict when a candidate is likely to start thinking about their next move, allowing us to access the talent that is hardest to reach. AI is also playing an increasingly important role in our global business support function, saving time and driving business efficiencies. In addition, we continue to work on a large number of projects in the prototype and evaluation stage as part of our ongoing investment in AI and technology. All that said, whilst technology and AI are powerful tools, human interaction is vital to deliver the most successful recruitment outcomes for both clients and candidates, particularly within white collar professional recruitment. Our consultants provide valuable expertise, market knowledge and insight to our customers with tech and AI playing a crucial role. Operator00:20:21I will now provide a brief summary of the full year results. We saw a slower end to 2024, which has continued into January and February, albeit they are two of the smallest months of the year from a trading perspective. Overall for 2024, we delivered operating profit of $52,400,000 at a conversion rate of 6.2%. As a result of our decisive action on headcount, productivity remained high in 2024, down only 1.7% on 2023 and significantly above pre pandemic levels. In response to the trading conditions, we've implemented a number of initiatives to reduce our cost base. Operator00:21:03Reflecting our confidence in the long term strategic opportunities for the group as well as the strength of our balance sheet, the board has proposed a final dividend of 11.75p per share, a 4.5% increase on 2023. We continue to make progress towards our strategic priorities and within our four pillars of growth to position the group for when trading improves. That concludes the formal presentation for this morning. Kelvin and I will now be happy to take any questions you may have. Speaker 200:21:36Thank you. The first question is from Simon Lekipa from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Yes, Speaker 100:21:50good evening. Three questions to Shane. Crossbow and current trading, any Operator00:22:04Sorry, I'm going to have to stop you. I can't hear your question. It's totally distorts, I'm afraid. Speaker 200:22:23So So our next question is from Rory McKenzie at UBS. Please go ahead. Speaker 300:22:28Good morning, Rory. I hope Speaker 200:22:29you can hear me okay. Speaker 100:22:31Morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Operator00:22:31Good morning. Good morning, Rory. Speaker 300:22:33Great. Cool. Yes, two questions, please. So firstly, predictably on your commentary around the slower trading continuing in January and February. I know volumes are very small in those months. Speaker 300:22:45But can you talk about perhaps the sentiment across regions? As you look around your business, is there any difference in the mood and the kind of prospects you're hearing from The Americas versus Europe versus Asia? And then secondly, interesting to hear the comments on how enterprise clients are doing relatively well. I think we've heard from a few peers that kind of larger firms like yourselves are doing well with larger clients. What do you think is driving that? Speaker 300:23:10Is there a good pipeline for more kind of wallet share gains in that part of the market? And some more thoughts around that as a growth driver for now would be helpful. Operator00:23:19Okay. No problem. Well, I can take both of those actually. So as regards January and February, I'll probably take you back to our January trading statements because in effect, I guess, what we're calling for January and February is what we were saying in January about Q4. So if you wanted any sense of sentiments or what's going on in a particular market, then broadly what we're seeing over January and February is what we saw in Q4. Operator00:23:43So where it was good, it remains pretty good. And where it was tough, it remains pretty tough. So no real change. Perm remains more challenging than non perm. Activity levels are still robust. Operator00:23:54But as we said throughout last year, activity levels were robust, but our challenge was converting that activity into accepted offers. I As you know, Rory, I mean, March will be the most important month of the quarter. We'll be out in about four weeks to update you on Q1, so we can probably talk a lot more about it then. As regards enterprise clients, I mean, from my perspective, I think there's two things. I mean, it's part of our strategy. Operator00:24:18So we are investing in that area. We're bringing in resource to focus on it. So I would expect it to be performing better even in the market conditions because, as I say, we're investing, we're bringing talented people into work in that area and we've got focus. I think the second thing as well is that for a lot of these bigger organizations, they're starting to understand that they can partner with global recruiters that can service them across multiple business lines and that works for them in terms of us better understanding the organization, they also more efficiently fill roles for them. And it works for them because clearly, they can negotiate a longer term deal with more cost efficient rates from their perspective. Operator00:25:01So it's a bit of a win win because we can be more efficient in our delivery, which means that we can place candidates and actually do it at a real kind of good value for us as an organization. But they're partnering with us, giving us more volumes, and they start to know us better and our success rate goes up. So I think it would be those two things, a strategic focus but also just an awakening I think from bigger global organizations that partnering with a small number of other global recruiters rather than tens and tens of boutiques locally is the best route to go. Speaker 200:25:43Thank you. We'll move on to the next question which comes from Carl Green at RBC. Please go ahead. Speaker 400:25:50Yes. Thanks very much. Good morning. I've got a couple of questions. Just in terms of the Time to Hire lengthening that we've seen and potential resolution of that, are you seeing any evidence at all of clients becoming a little bit more flexible in terms of the mandates they're putting out there, setting slightly less strict or narrow hiring criteria. Speaker 400:26:11I mean, it's something that when you look across the various forums, it doesn't seem to be a challenge for the candidates in particular. And sort of down the line in a similar vein, do you think that as you deploy AI and look for those kind of cross fertilization opportunities that you will help clients to become more flexible in their thinking about who a good fit might look like rather than just going for, you know, they've done it before, they've got XYZ experience. So that's narrow and a broad question, I guess. And then the second one, I'm afraid this one is a bit broader and it's very, very early days. We're seeing radical changes in priorities in Europe, in particular, around infrastructure and defense spending. Speaker 400:26:51Have you got any preliminary thoughts about how that might be a source of opportunity for you? Thanks. Operator00:27:00Okay. I'll take the three part first question and Speaker 100:27:03then Operator00:27:04Kelkine, have a quick think about our positioning in the defense sector. I think in terms of the time to hire, no, not really. I mean, we are actively out in the market talking to just talking more broadly across social platforms, but talking at events and talking to our customers about the opportunity to look at skills based hiring and the importance of it, particularly in talent short markets. And because at the moment, the briefs that were given, the mandates that were given to your point are inflexible and they are demanding skills and experience that so few candidates have, which is just exaggerating the shortages that we already see are in place. So we're trying that, but then the pressure comes on and I get it from a client, which is that if they have a tightened recruitment budget, the pressure on them to hire the right person ramps up. Operator00:28:07And if you're in a TA team in an organization or a HR department or even as a line manager, you're looking for the lowest risk hire. And therefore investing into an idea of, well, I'll take someone on board and train them up or they've got skills in associated areas and I'll bring them across isn't the natural instinct that a hiring manager would have in conditions like this where budgets are tight, clients are looking for efficiencies and clients are looking for a candidate that perhaps can come in and do 1.5 jobs rather than just one job. So no, we're not seeing any shift from our clients in terms of them saying, look, to address some of the shortages, we'll be more flexible. If anything, I'd say they're doubling down on wanting to have the ideal candidate, which clearly makes it more challenging for the recruiter. I think in terms of the AI opportunity, I hadn't really thought about it in the context that you'd mentioned it because I still have some concerns around AI doing bottom of the funnel screening. Operator00:29:13I can see it work and we use it at the top of the funnel where we have high volumes of applications Speaker 100:29:29subjective decision Operator00:29:29making, I still have a towards the subjective decision making, I still haven't seen any evidence from any of the tools that I've had displayed to me that they can do that better than an experienced consultant who knows the sector and importantly knows the customer. I think where AI can help and we talked about it a little bit in the presentation there is around trying to access the kind of hard to find candidates. Candidates kind of tend to fall into three buckets and they're either active candidates that are out in the market, everybody's aware of them, they're applying for jobs. They're the candidates that are passive, they're not looking and you can spend a lot of time contacting them, but they're happy with where they are and they don't want to move. But there's a group in the middle that are transitioning from being passive to being active. Operator00:30:16And that's where we're using our product time enroll to actually try and speak to those candidates before they actually put a CV together or start doing anything proactively so that we can hoover those candidates up and put them in front of our clients so that they're the first couple of interviews that that candidate may have had. And that to me is an exciting use of AI in the recruitment sector. But as I say, where I see it being used to make decisions right at the bottom end of the selection process, that continues to worry me. Speaker 100:30:49Yes. I can talk to the question on defense. So directly in defense, we don't do a huge amount. So last year, our full GP from defense globally was about million, of which about million was in Europe, but less than was in Germany. So into that direct defense, we don't have a lot of exposure. Speaker 100:31:16However, if I look at our German business, 25% of it does fit into industrial sector. So we would have decent sized clients in primary materials that would go into the defense sector. So we do a fair bit work with semiconductors, with metals. And therefore, I think it's not that we couldn't move into defense if defense became an area there. But I think initially, we would probably see a pickup in some of our clients in those sort of primary inputs into the defense sector. Speaker 400:31:56All very clear. Thanks very much. Thank Speaker 200:32:01you. Our next question is from Steve Wolf at Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Speaker 500:32:06Good morning all. Just thinking about Page Executive, just some thoughts around where the investment has gone, what type of roles and sort of salary levels are we talking about here? And I'm trying to sort of get a sense of where the logjam begins between people, you know, the the necessity of hiring roles into, say, page executive versus that middle ground that you're seeing at the minute where people are looking for the, you know, for the perfect candidate, as it were? Just some background on PageExec please. Thank you. Operator00:32:38Yes. Thanks for the question. PageExec, I mean, we're very proud of the PageExec business and its performance. I mean, when we were putting the strategy together a couple of years ago, it was the easiest area to actually agree on to see added to the strategy as one of the growth pillars because everybody felt the same way. It was very much a bit of a secret weapon for Page because of our unique positioning in that market gap. Operator00:33:02So below the Schreck firms, but above a number of our peers who don't really play in that area and don't have a brand that's recognized at that level. We see opportunity in all the markets. I think in short, if we were to reflect on last year and the discovery phase, I think we felt there would be big opportunities for us in places like The U. S. And Japan and across Europe and The U. Operator00:33:27K. But I think we've been surprised by the big opportunity that we see in places like LatAm and some of the Asian countries as well. So I just think that it's going to be probably bigger than we thought it was going to be overall, which clearly is good news for us. We also saw some trends in PageExec that were counter to what we saw in the core business. So again, I thought it was quite interesting this morning when I was looking through some numbers that actually the fastest growing discipline within PageExec was technology. Operator00:33:59Yet technology overall has been tough, yet it grew at 20% within Page Executive and it accounts for I think 17% of their total revenue. So it kind of comes back to the point you've made really, Steve, and you're absolutely right to kind of highlight it, which is that at the paid executive level, I think there's two things to reflect on. Firstly, most of the work that we do is retained. Therefore, there's a retainer fee, there's a shortlist fee. So that by the time we get to the end of the process, if a decision isn't made, we've made two thirds of the fee already. Operator00:34:31The second thing though is around, as you said, the necessity to hire. So if you have a vacant role at CFO level or as your group marketing director or whatever else it may be, that isn't a role that can go vacant for long. So when you get to the end of a process, even if you're sat looking at two candidates Speaker 100:34:51and going, well, I like this about them and I like Operator00:34:51this about them, candidates and going, Speaker 200:34:54well, I like this about them and Speaker 100:34:55I like this about them, Operator00:34:56you need to hire one of them because you need to fill the job. I think what happens as you move down to that Michael Page level in middle management is that you probably got five other middle managements potentially, not all the time, but one example might be that you have five other middle managers that all do that job and one of them, you've got one vacancy to add into the team. Well, truth is, is that you can probably share the work for a prolonged period of time if necessary before you add that other person in. So then when you get to that moment in the process where you have two candidates and let's role play it the same way, which is I like this about that candidate, I like this about that candidate. Well, probably in that situation, you go back to the recruiter and say, could you find me someone who's got the best of both worlds? Operator00:35:40And that's the difference. They're often non critical hires. They're important hires. They're signed off. They will ultimately get filled. Operator00:35:48But clients will be more willing to wait because they can cover the work in the interim. Speaker 500:35:56Would I be what I think is that fee rates are probably higher in this business as well because you are hiring at that level. Operator00:36:04Yes, totally right. Yes. So they will always be higher than Michael Page, yes, because of the accepted fee rates at executive level. Speaker 200:36:14Sure. That's great. Thanks very much, Nick. Operator00:36:17Thanks Speaker 100:36:26Steve. Speaker 200:36:34Okay. We have no further questions. So I'll hand back to Nick for any closing remarks. Okay. Thanks, Seb. Speaker 100:36:40As there Operator00:36:40are no further questions, thank you all for joining us this morning. Our next update will be our first quarter trading update on the April 14. Thank you. Thank you all. Speaker 200:36:52This concludes the Page Group full year results call. Thank you all for joining.Read morePowered by Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallPageGroup H2 202400:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2x Earnings DocumentsSlide DeckInterim report PageGroup Earnings HeadlinesFTSE 100 Live: UK Economy Beats All Expectations in FebruaryApril 11, 2025 | bloomberg.comPageGroup plans job cuts as uncertain economic backdrop hinders hiringApril 9, 2025 | lse.co.ukSomething strange going on at Mar-a-LagoA former government advisor says a $9 trillion AI breakthrough is nearing launch. It may become America’s biggest advantage in the race against China — and a handful of Musk-linked companies could benefit.April 18, 2025 | Brownstone Research (Ad)Recruiter axes senior managers as hiring slowdown forces cost cuttingApril 9, 2025 | msn.comPagegroup: UK profit slides as hiring slows at FTSE 250 recruiterApril 9, 2025 | msn.comUK recruiter PageGroup to slash costs by $19 million after earnings dipApril 9, 2025 | reuters.comSee More PageGroup Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like PageGroup? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on PageGroup and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About PageGroupPageGroup (LON:PAGE) Changes Lives… That’s our PageGroup Purpose, delivered by c. 8,500 people in 37 countries, with a gross profit of over £1,076.3mm in 2022. Our four core PageGroup brands are supported by specialised recruitment teams operating across 25 disciplines. As a FTSE 250 company, a lot has changed since we were set up in 1976 and the Group continues to grow and evolve. What hasn’t changed is our commitment to the success of our clients and candidates, and our own people. PageGroup’s strategy is geared for the long-term. With world-renowned and fully integrated brands, highly trained and motivated consultants, established professional relationships and access to the best candidates, we use our established database and market-leading approach to data and innovation to pursue our objective of being the leading specialist recruitment consultancy in our chosen markets. Our diverse and inclusive culture and robust sustainability framework reflects our commitment to delivering meaningful social and environmental impact and our strategy is linked to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Our global philosophy is actioned through local deliverables with success measured against transparent targets.View PageGroup ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Earnings By Country U.S. Earnings Reports Canadian Earnings Reports U.K. Earnings Reports Latest Articles Archer Aviation Unveils NYC Network Ahead of Key Earnings Report3 Reasons to Like the Look of Amazon Ahead of EarningsTesla Stock Eyes Breakout With Earnings on DeckJohnson & Johnson Earnings Were More Good Than Bad—Time to Buy? 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There are 6 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Page Group twenty twenty four full year results presentation. I'm Nick Kirk, Chief Executive Officer and on the call with me is Kelvin Stagg, Chief Financial Officer. Market conditions remain challenging across all regions in 2024 with worsening sentiment and reduced confidence in Europe during the second half of the year. Despite the year on year decline in gross profit and operating profit, we saw good activity levels throughout the year. Operator00:00:30The conversion of interviews to accepted offers remains the most significant area of challenge as ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty continues to impact candidate and client confidence which extends the time to hire. We remain committed to our strategy, and I will update you on our progress later in the presentation. I will now hand you over to Kelvin to take you through our financial review. Speaker 100:00:55Thanks, Nick, and good morning, everybody. Although I would not read it through, I'd just like to make reference to the legal formalities that are covered in the cautionary statement in the appendix of this presentation and which will also be available on our website following the call. In 2024, the group delivered gross profit of million, down 12.8% in constant currencies against 2023 due to the ongoing challenging trading conditions. We delivered operating profit of million down from million and our conversion rate was 6.2% compared to 11.8. Earnings per share was 9.1p and and we ended the year at a strong financial position with net cash of million compared with million at the end of twenty twenty three. Speaker 100:01:47Today, the board has proposed an increase in the final dividend of 4.5% to 11.75p per share, reflecting its confidence in the continued strategic opportunities of the group as well as the strength of our balance sheet. Combined with the interim dividend of 5.36p, this represents a total dividend of 17.11p. I will now move on to the financial review. This productivity chart demonstrates how we have managed our Fionna headcount in response to movements in gross profit. As trading conditions deteriorated through 2024, we reduced our Fionna headcount by 8.2% from 5,851 in Q4 twenty twenty three to 5 thousand 3 hundred and 70 in Q4 twenty twenty four. Speaker 100:02:37In line with our strategy and to maximize productivity, we also reviewed underperforming business lines and reallocated Feona's to more profitable roles and markets. As a result of our decisive action on headcount, gross profit per Feona, our measure of productivity remained at elevated levels in 2024, down only 1.7% in constant currencies on 2023 and significantly above pre pandemic levels. In 2024, given the tough trading conditions we continue to experience, we implemented a number of initiatives to reduce our cost base. Overall, our 2024 cost base was around million less than in 2023, driven by savings in Fionna headcount, bonuses and our Global Business Solutions or GBS functions. We continue to review our Fionna headcount, making progress on our strategy by reallocating resources into the areas of the business where we see the most significant long term structural opportunities as well as ensuring it remains aligned to activity levels we are seeing in each of our markets. Speaker 100:03:44Afiona headcount has now reduced by 24% or around 1,700 from its peak in Q3 twenty twenty two. This reduction was largely by natural attrition and shows our team profit share business model in operation. Our operational costs reduced in line with this reduction in headcount. Our team based profit share model means that the bonus cost varies in response to profits rather than the commission structure that is directly linked to revenue. In line with the tougher trading and consequent drop in profit in 2024, bonuses reduced by around million compared to 2023. Speaker 100:04:23In 2024, we also implemented a number of programs to refine our future cost base. During the year, we relocated our U. K. And Singapore shared service centers with the transition of activities to Barcelona, Buenos Aires and Kuala Lumpur. These initiatives incurred one off cost in 2024 of around million and will deliver cost savings in 2025 of around million, dollars increasing to $6,000,000 in 2026. Speaker 100:04:51Within GBS, headcount was broadly flat over the course of the year, partly due to the double running of around 65 heads at the end of the year due to the aforementioned transition of our Singapore Shared Shared Service Center. We also focused on our third party spend, meaning that overall, we reduced our GBS cost base by 5% compared to 2023 despite the high inflationary environment in which we are operating. Additional initiatives consolidated our office portfolio and reducing our overall operational spend. We continue to review our cost base and adapt in response to market conditions. Despite challenging market conditions, we delivered operating profit of $52,400,000 in 2024. Speaker 100:05:37Our conversion rate decreased from 11.8% to 6.2%. Looking at each of our regions starting with our largest EMEA representing 55% of the group, gross profit decreased by 13.4% in constant currencies on 2023. EMEA delivered the group's highest conversion rate of 13.2%. This was reflective of the region experiencing more resilient trading conditions through the first half of twenty twenty four. However, market conditions weakened during the second half due mainly to softer trading in a number of European countries and particularly in our two largest markets, France and Germany. Speaker 100:06:17In The Americas representing 18% of the group, gross profit decreased by 9.9% and our conversion rate decreased to 4.7%. Latin America saw some strong performances, particularly in Brazil and Colombia. Despite the tougher trading conditions in North America, we maintained our Fianna platform in anticipation of an improvement in market conditions. In Asia Pacific representing 15% of the group, gross profit declined 17% due primarily to the ongoing challenging market conditions, particularly in Greater China. We had a negative conversion rate of 6.6% as a result of the tougher trading conditions across the region as well as the one off costs incurred due to the transition of our shared service center from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. Speaker 100:07:04Excluding this and some restructuring costs in China, the region was broadly breakeven. In The U. K, representing 12% of the group, gross profit declined 16.2% on 2023. Despite the tough market conditions, The U. K. Speaker 100:07:20Trading tax charge for the year was million. The tax charge for the year was million, which represented an effective tax rate of 42.1%. The higher tax rate was due largely to the derecognition of overseas losses, which increased the rate by 8%. In 2025, the effective tax rate is expected to be around 35%. Our balance sheet position remains strong. Speaker 100:07:59Trade and other receivables decreased by 64,900,000.0, driven by the reduced levels of trading activity and continued strong levels of cash collection. After returning a total of 52,000,000 to shareholders by way of ordinary dividends in 2024, net cash at the end of the year was million. Overall, net assets decreased million to million. This slide shows the key movements in our cash through the year. Our EBITDA inflow was million and the unwind of working capital also increased net cash by million. Speaker 100:08:42Tax and net interest payments were 17,900,000.0. Net capital expenditure was 15,800,000.0 for the year, lower than 2023 due to reduced spend on office fit house. Payments made in relation to lease liabilities reduced cash by 40,600,000.0 and share option exercises in 2024 remained low due to the subdued share price. The group also purchased shares costing million in March into the Employ Benefit Trust to hedge our liabilities under the group's share plans. The largest outflow of cash totaling million was dividends. Speaker 100:09:22The overall impact of these cash flows was to increase the group's net cash position by million to 95,300,000.0 at the end of the year. Overall, despite the tougher trading conditions in 2024, we delivered a pretax cash conversion rate of over 100%. The group operates a highly cash generative business model with very high levels of cash conversion. We have a clear capital allocation strategy with three defined and well established uses of cash. The first is to satisfy the operational investment requirements of the group, such as investing in additional headcounts and continuing to roll out technology as well as the hedge liabilities under the group share plans. Speaker 100:10:06The second is for the payment of ordinary dividends, where our policy is to maintain these through a downturn, which we've done in all years apart from the pandemic and to increase them when trading conditions are more favorable. Finally, any remaining cash surplus is to be distributed to shareholders by way of a supplementary return. Today, the group announced the proposed final ordinary dividend of 11.75p per share, an increase of 4.5% on 2023. Subject to shareholder approval at the AGM, this will be paid on the June 23 to shareholders on the register as at the May 16. When combined with the interim dividend of 5.36p per share, this gives a total ordinary dividend for the year of 17.11p. Speaker 100:10:52At the year end share price, this represents a total dividend yield of 5%. I will now hand you over to Nick to take you through our strategic review. Operator00:11:03Thanks, Kelvin. We launched our strategy in September 2023 with three key strategic goals: delivering operating profit of million, changing 1,000,000 lives and increasing our Net Promoter Score to over 60. Since we launched the strategy, market conditions have been challenging. But despite this, we continue to make progress on our strategic goals to position the group when trading improves. I will talk about this in more detail later in the presentation. Operator00:11:37Against our social impact goal of changing 1,000,000 lives, we performed strongly. In 2024, we changed over 130,000 lives, meaning that in total, we've changed over 640,000 since 2020, putting us well on track to deliver our target by 02/1930. Progress in this area is measured by the number of people whose lives we've changed by placing them into work as well as the number of people who access programs we run that support traditionally underrepresented groups accessing employment. We made excellent progress to achieve our customer experience goal by reaching a client Net Promoter Score of 61 from our baseline of 52 in 2022. This highlights our commitment to providing excellent service to our customers, further cementing our position as a benchmark of quality in our industry. Operator00:12:30Our strategy prioritizes delivering what we are famous for, building on our existing strengths and leveraging our established global platform. Our broad based global platform provides multiple opportunities for accelerated growth as conditions improve. We are successfully diversified across 36 countries with no single market representing more than 15% of the group. Therefore, we are well placed to benefit from market recovery wherever it comes. We have a clear focus on what we do best at both the country and the city level, growing our business in areas where we see the greatest future potential. Operator00:13:11To achieve our strategy, we have four pillars of growth: our core business, our technology discipline, Page Executive and Enterprise Solutions, which supports our strategic customers with their complex global requirements. We continue to maximize our core business under our Michael Page and Page Personnel brands, building on our previous investment strategy to strengthen our market leading position with a focus on profitable growth. Our technology business is a scale play, enabling us to build a high value, high volume business in what for us is already a significant market. Page Executive is a market gap play, specializing in senior leadership search and recruitment as well as offering executive advisory services. Enterprise Solutions is a partnership play as we build out our capabilities and breadth of offering to create long term mutual value with our strategic customers. Operator00:14:09I will now give you a brief update on the progress we have made within our four pillars of growth. Within the core business, trading conditions have been challenging in the majority of our markets. During periods of market uncertainty, clients often seek more flexible options in non permanent recruitment. And as a result, it tends to out perform permanent. As seen previously during the global financial crisis and again during the pandemic when the market starts to show early signs of recovery compared to our peers our higher level of operational gearing due to our predominantly permanent recruitment business allows us to recover rapidly. Operator00:14:50In response to the tougher macroeconomic conditions, we continue to review our business operations, reallocating resource into areas where we see the greatest future potential. As part of this repositioning, we reviewed disciplines that were less profitable and transferred consultants to more productive roles. For example, in Japan, we had a business across multiple disciplines and brands. This meant that we operated in many markets without achieving significant levels of penetration or market share. In line with our strategy, we've simplified the operating model to position the business for accelerated longer term growth with three key areas of focus as a specialist technology recruiter in the domestic Nikkei market, as a dedicated contracting recruiter across technology and finance, and finally, building on our existing strength as a perm recruiter in the bilingual, bicultural Gaisky market. Operator00:15:45This is one example of many where we have executed our strategy, streamlining and refocusing the business into markets we believe will offer us long term growth at conversion rates in line with or above our target. As has been widely reported, the technology sector has experienced challenging conditions over the past two years. Despite this, technology remains our second largest discipline and we continue to see a highly dynamic sector with demand for skills changing rapidly, particularly in areas such as cyber, AI, machine learning and big data. In 2024, we were pleased to see growth in 11 of our markets, including Brazil, India and Mexico. We also saw further diversification into non permanent recruitment, which represented 41% of technology gross profit in 2024, up from 36% in 2023. Operator00:16:40Page Executive continues to deliver the standout results of the group with growth of 7%. This was a record year globally as well as in individual markets such as France, Germany, Italy, Mexico and Japan. It has become clear since we launched the strategy that the market gap opportunity is greater than initially anticipated and our customers have welcomed our modern, agile approach to senior leadership search, executive recruitment and advisory services. We have a highly experienced and proven team of around 300 fee earners in Page Executive with an average tenure of seven years at Page and fourteen years in the recruitment industry. Within Enterprise Solutions, which is our business focused on strategic customers, we have successfully transitioned from a regional to a global structure, aligning our leadership, sales and account management teams as we seek to best serve our largest clients. Operator00:17:36In 2024, against the backdrop of a difficult macro, we generated 7% more gross profit from our largest 20 clients than we did in our record year in 2022. Despite the underperformance of the overall recruitment outsourcing sector, we have seen good growth in our page outsourcing business. Enterprise Solutions plays a significant role in responding to evolving client demands and due to our broad based platform across 36 markets, it represents an opportunity for the group to accelerate growth across all geographies and all segments of the market. We remain focused on winning business that delivers conversion rates in line with our strategy. Technology and AI have impacted our industry positively in recent years, offering a host of benefits, including increased efficiency and automation. Operator00:18:27We first started talking to you about our AI journey AI journey at our Capital Markets event in 2018 and since then we've been collaborating with the most significant players in big tech to develop safe and secure cutting edge technology and AI systems for everyday use by our consultants. We are harnessing the potential of AI to improve all stages of the recruitment process from initial candidate and client attraction to ongoing customer engagement. Our tools do the heavy lifting for our consultants, increasing business efficiency and allowing them to do what they do best, build human connections and customer relationships to deliver exceptional results. Our proprietary platforms, Page Insights and Customer Connect, alongside our AI systems, are industry leading. Jade, our AI driven job advert generator allows our consultants to create a well written and high performing advert in a fraction of the time it took previously. Operator00:19:26Our Time Enroll product uses AI to more accurately predict when a candidate is likely to start thinking about their next move, allowing us to access the talent that is hardest to reach. AI is also playing an increasingly important role in our global business support function, saving time and driving business efficiencies. In addition, we continue to work on a large number of projects in the prototype and evaluation stage as part of our ongoing investment in AI and technology. All that said, whilst technology and AI are powerful tools, human interaction is vital to deliver the most successful recruitment outcomes for both clients and candidates, particularly within white collar professional recruitment. Our consultants provide valuable expertise, market knowledge and insight to our customers with tech and AI playing a crucial role. Operator00:20:21I will now provide a brief summary of the full year results. We saw a slower end to 2024, which has continued into January and February, albeit they are two of the smallest months of the year from a trading perspective. Overall for 2024, we delivered operating profit of $52,400,000 at a conversion rate of 6.2%. As a result of our decisive action on headcount, productivity remained high in 2024, down only 1.7% on 2023 and significantly above pre pandemic levels. In response to the trading conditions, we've implemented a number of initiatives to reduce our cost base. Operator00:21:03Reflecting our confidence in the long term strategic opportunities for the group as well as the strength of our balance sheet, the board has proposed a final dividend of 11.75p per share, a 4.5% increase on 2023. We continue to make progress towards our strategic priorities and within our four pillars of growth to position the group for when trading improves. That concludes the formal presentation for this morning. Kelvin and I will now be happy to take any questions you may have. Speaker 200:21:36Thank you. The first question is from Simon Lekipa from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Yes, Speaker 100:21:50good evening. Three questions to Shane. Crossbow and current trading, any Operator00:22:04Sorry, I'm going to have to stop you. I can't hear your question. It's totally distorts, I'm afraid. Speaker 200:22:23So So our next question is from Rory McKenzie at UBS. Please go ahead. Speaker 300:22:28Good morning, Rory. I hope Speaker 200:22:29you can hear me okay. Speaker 100:22:31Morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Operator00:22:31Good morning. Good morning, Rory. Speaker 300:22:33Great. Cool. Yes, two questions, please. So firstly, predictably on your commentary around the slower trading continuing in January and February. I know volumes are very small in those months. Speaker 300:22:45But can you talk about perhaps the sentiment across regions? As you look around your business, is there any difference in the mood and the kind of prospects you're hearing from The Americas versus Europe versus Asia? And then secondly, interesting to hear the comments on how enterprise clients are doing relatively well. I think we've heard from a few peers that kind of larger firms like yourselves are doing well with larger clients. What do you think is driving that? Speaker 300:23:10Is there a good pipeline for more kind of wallet share gains in that part of the market? And some more thoughts around that as a growth driver for now would be helpful. Operator00:23:19Okay. No problem. Well, I can take both of those actually. So as regards January and February, I'll probably take you back to our January trading statements because in effect, I guess, what we're calling for January and February is what we were saying in January about Q4. So if you wanted any sense of sentiments or what's going on in a particular market, then broadly what we're seeing over January and February is what we saw in Q4. Operator00:23:43So where it was good, it remains pretty good. And where it was tough, it remains pretty tough. So no real change. Perm remains more challenging than non perm. Activity levels are still robust. Operator00:23:54But as we said throughout last year, activity levels were robust, but our challenge was converting that activity into accepted offers. I As you know, Rory, I mean, March will be the most important month of the quarter. We'll be out in about four weeks to update you on Q1, so we can probably talk a lot more about it then. As regards enterprise clients, I mean, from my perspective, I think there's two things. I mean, it's part of our strategy. Operator00:24:18So we are investing in that area. We're bringing in resource to focus on it. So I would expect it to be performing better even in the market conditions because, as I say, we're investing, we're bringing talented people into work in that area and we've got focus. I think the second thing as well is that for a lot of these bigger organizations, they're starting to understand that they can partner with global recruiters that can service them across multiple business lines and that works for them in terms of us better understanding the organization, they also more efficiently fill roles for them. And it works for them because clearly, they can negotiate a longer term deal with more cost efficient rates from their perspective. Operator00:25:01So it's a bit of a win win because we can be more efficient in our delivery, which means that we can place candidates and actually do it at a real kind of good value for us as an organization. But they're partnering with us, giving us more volumes, and they start to know us better and our success rate goes up. So I think it would be those two things, a strategic focus but also just an awakening I think from bigger global organizations that partnering with a small number of other global recruiters rather than tens and tens of boutiques locally is the best route to go. Speaker 200:25:43Thank you. We'll move on to the next question which comes from Carl Green at RBC. Please go ahead. Speaker 400:25:50Yes. Thanks very much. Good morning. I've got a couple of questions. Just in terms of the Time to Hire lengthening that we've seen and potential resolution of that, are you seeing any evidence at all of clients becoming a little bit more flexible in terms of the mandates they're putting out there, setting slightly less strict or narrow hiring criteria. Speaker 400:26:11I mean, it's something that when you look across the various forums, it doesn't seem to be a challenge for the candidates in particular. And sort of down the line in a similar vein, do you think that as you deploy AI and look for those kind of cross fertilization opportunities that you will help clients to become more flexible in their thinking about who a good fit might look like rather than just going for, you know, they've done it before, they've got XYZ experience. So that's narrow and a broad question, I guess. And then the second one, I'm afraid this one is a bit broader and it's very, very early days. We're seeing radical changes in priorities in Europe, in particular, around infrastructure and defense spending. Speaker 400:26:51Have you got any preliminary thoughts about how that might be a source of opportunity for you? Thanks. Operator00:27:00Okay. I'll take the three part first question and Speaker 100:27:03then Operator00:27:04Kelkine, have a quick think about our positioning in the defense sector. I think in terms of the time to hire, no, not really. I mean, we are actively out in the market talking to just talking more broadly across social platforms, but talking at events and talking to our customers about the opportunity to look at skills based hiring and the importance of it, particularly in talent short markets. And because at the moment, the briefs that were given, the mandates that were given to your point are inflexible and they are demanding skills and experience that so few candidates have, which is just exaggerating the shortages that we already see are in place. So we're trying that, but then the pressure comes on and I get it from a client, which is that if they have a tightened recruitment budget, the pressure on them to hire the right person ramps up. Operator00:28:07And if you're in a TA team in an organization or a HR department or even as a line manager, you're looking for the lowest risk hire. And therefore investing into an idea of, well, I'll take someone on board and train them up or they've got skills in associated areas and I'll bring them across isn't the natural instinct that a hiring manager would have in conditions like this where budgets are tight, clients are looking for efficiencies and clients are looking for a candidate that perhaps can come in and do 1.5 jobs rather than just one job. So no, we're not seeing any shift from our clients in terms of them saying, look, to address some of the shortages, we'll be more flexible. If anything, I'd say they're doubling down on wanting to have the ideal candidate, which clearly makes it more challenging for the recruiter. I think in terms of the AI opportunity, I hadn't really thought about it in the context that you'd mentioned it because I still have some concerns around AI doing bottom of the funnel screening. Operator00:29:13I can see it work and we use it at the top of the funnel where we have high volumes of applications Speaker 100:29:29subjective decision Operator00:29:29making, I still have a towards the subjective decision making, I still haven't seen any evidence from any of the tools that I've had displayed to me that they can do that better than an experienced consultant who knows the sector and importantly knows the customer. I think where AI can help and we talked about it a little bit in the presentation there is around trying to access the kind of hard to find candidates. Candidates kind of tend to fall into three buckets and they're either active candidates that are out in the market, everybody's aware of them, they're applying for jobs. They're the candidates that are passive, they're not looking and you can spend a lot of time contacting them, but they're happy with where they are and they don't want to move. But there's a group in the middle that are transitioning from being passive to being active. Operator00:30:16And that's where we're using our product time enroll to actually try and speak to those candidates before they actually put a CV together or start doing anything proactively so that we can hoover those candidates up and put them in front of our clients so that they're the first couple of interviews that that candidate may have had. And that to me is an exciting use of AI in the recruitment sector. But as I say, where I see it being used to make decisions right at the bottom end of the selection process, that continues to worry me. Speaker 100:30:49Yes. I can talk to the question on defense. So directly in defense, we don't do a huge amount. So last year, our full GP from defense globally was about million, of which about million was in Europe, but less than was in Germany. So into that direct defense, we don't have a lot of exposure. Speaker 100:31:16However, if I look at our German business, 25% of it does fit into industrial sector. So we would have decent sized clients in primary materials that would go into the defense sector. So we do a fair bit work with semiconductors, with metals. And therefore, I think it's not that we couldn't move into defense if defense became an area there. But I think initially, we would probably see a pickup in some of our clients in those sort of primary inputs into the defense sector. Speaker 400:31:56All very clear. Thanks very much. Thank Speaker 200:32:01you. Our next question is from Steve Wolf at Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Speaker 500:32:06Good morning all. Just thinking about Page Executive, just some thoughts around where the investment has gone, what type of roles and sort of salary levels are we talking about here? And I'm trying to sort of get a sense of where the logjam begins between people, you know, the the necessity of hiring roles into, say, page executive versus that middle ground that you're seeing at the minute where people are looking for the, you know, for the perfect candidate, as it were? Just some background on PageExec please. Thank you. Operator00:32:38Yes. Thanks for the question. PageExec, I mean, we're very proud of the PageExec business and its performance. I mean, when we were putting the strategy together a couple of years ago, it was the easiest area to actually agree on to see added to the strategy as one of the growth pillars because everybody felt the same way. It was very much a bit of a secret weapon for Page because of our unique positioning in that market gap. Operator00:33:02So below the Schreck firms, but above a number of our peers who don't really play in that area and don't have a brand that's recognized at that level. We see opportunity in all the markets. I think in short, if we were to reflect on last year and the discovery phase, I think we felt there would be big opportunities for us in places like The U. S. And Japan and across Europe and The U. Operator00:33:27K. But I think we've been surprised by the big opportunity that we see in places like LatAm and some of the Asian countries as well. So I just think that it's going to be probably bigger than we thought it was going to be overall, which clearly is good news for us. We also saw some trends in PageExec that were counter to what we saw in the core business. So again, I thought it was quite interesting this morning when I was looking through some numbers that actually the fastest growing discipline within PageExec was technology. Operator00:33:59Yet technology overall has been tough, yet it grew at 20% within Page Executive and it accounts for I think 17% of their total revenue. So it kind of comes back to the point you've made really, Steve, and you're absolutely right to kind of highlight it, which is that at the paid executive level, I think there's two things to reflect on. Firstly, most of the work that we do is retained. Therefore, there's a retainer fee, there's a shortlist fee. So that by the time we get to the end of the process, if a decision isn't made, we've made two thirds of the fee already. Operator00:34:31The second thing though is around, as you said, the necessity to hire. So if you have a vacant role at CFO level or as your group marketing director or whatever else it may be, that isn't a role that can go vacant for long. So when you get to the end of a process, even if you're sat looking at two candidates Speaker 100:34:51and going, well, I like this about them and I like Operator00:34:51this about them, candidates and going, Speaker 200:34:54well, I like this about them and Speaker 100:34:55I like this about them, Operator00:34:56you need to hire one of them because you need to fill the job. I think what happens as you move down to that Michael Page level in middle management is that you probably got five other middle managements potentially, not all the time, but one example might be that you have five other middle managers that all do that job and one of them, you've got one vacancy to add into the team. Well, truth is, is that you can probably share the work for a prolonged period of time if necessary before you add that other person in. So then when you get to that moment in the process where you have two candidates and let's role play it the same way, which is I like this about that candidate, I like this about that candidate. Well, probably in that situation, you go back to the recruiter and say, could you find me someone who's got the best of both worlds? Operator00:35:40And that's the difference. They're often non critical hires. They're important hires. They're signed off. They will ultimately get filled. Operator00:35:48But clients will be more willing to wait because they can cover the work in the interim. Speaker 500:35:56Would I be what I think is that fee rates are probably higher in this business as well because you are hiring at that level. Operator00:36:04Yes, totally right. Yes. So they will always be higher than Michael Page, yes, because of the accepted fee rates at executive level. Speaker 200:36:14Sure. That's great. Thanks very much, Nick. Operator00:36:17Thanks Speaker 100:36:26Steve. Speaker 200:36:34Okay. We have no further questions. So I'll hand back to Nick for any closing remarks. Okay. Thanks, Seb. Speaker 100:36:40As there Operator00:36:40are no further questions, thank you all for joining us this morning. Our next update will be our first quarter trading update on the April 14. Thank you. Thank you all. Speaker 200:36:52This concludes the Page Group full year results call. Thank you all for joining.Read morePowered by