Robert Walters H2 2024 Earnings Report

Robert Walters EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -GBX 9.10
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Robert Walters Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Robert Walters Announcement Details

• Quarter: H2 2024
• Date: 3/6/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, March 6, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 5:30AM ET

Established in 1985, Robert Walters (LON:RWA) is a global talent solutions business operating in 31 countries across the globe. We support organisations to build high-performing teams, and help professionals to grow meaningful careers. Our client base ranges from the world’s leading blue-chip corporates through to SMEs and start-ups. We deliver three core services: • Specialist recruitment - encompassing permanent and temporary recruitment, executive search and interim management. • Recruitment outsourcing - enabling organisations to transfer all, or part of, their recruitment needs to us either through recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) or contingent workforce solutions (CWS). • Talent Advisory - supporting the growth of organisations through market intelligence, talent development, and future of work consultancy. Our employees are passionate about powering people and organisations to fulfil their unique potential. We take the time to listen to, and fully connect with, the people and organisations we partner with. Our ability to truly understand them and create and share their compelling stories is what sets us apart.

Robert Walters H2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, and welcome to the Robert Walters twenty twenty four Full Year Results Webcast and Conference Call. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Toby Halston, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Robert Walters twenty twenty four Full Year Results Presentation Webcast. I'm Toby Folston, Chief Executive and joining me today is David Bauer, Chief Financial Officer. In In terms of our agenda today, I'll shortly hand over to David to take you through an operational and financial review and the early progress we've seen on the five building blocks we're focused on to drive a higher margin business in the medium term. I'll then return to give you an update on what we are seeing in the changing world of work and the confidence we have in our growth drivers. As usual, we'll leave plenty of time to then open up for Q and A.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

So as we begin, here are my key messages for today. Firstly, though 2024 brought a second year of very challenging conditions in global hiring markets, we began to execute our strategic plan against this tough backdrop and we have seen some good early progress. We are managing our geographic portfolio with increased discipline and we repositioned the business to be well placed for the rapidly changing world of work. Secondly, we remain sharply focused on costs. In 2024, we took actions to ensure our cost base is appropriate for the current end markets.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

In addition, we also began to realize structural cost savings in line with our disciplined entrepreneurialism strategy with over million of saving already secured. This stands us in good stead for 2025 where our outlook is that an improvement in end markets is unlikely to be seen before the latter part of the year. And thirdly, we continue to have high levels of conviction in the long term growth drivers of the business, which has been further strengthened by the progress we have seen over 2024. There is more to go for in our largest specialist recruitment market of Japan, whilst interim management, workforce consultancy and talent advisory offer outsized growth opportunities and above group average margins. With that said, I'll hand you over to David.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

Thanks, Toby, and good morning, everyone. As Toby said a moment ago, 2024 brought a second year of challenging conditions across our industry with subdued client and candidate confidence impacting both Specialist Recruitment and Recruitment Outsourcing. In specialist recruitment, fees were down 13%, perm fees accounting for around two thirds of the mix declined 14% and temp being contract and the interim management offering was slightly more resilient, however, with fees down 10%. Within this, the performance in interim stood out with fees down just 2%. Across our specialist recruitment markets and with the exception of interim, we observed a similar dynamic with lower volumes of permanent placements and temps working driving the year on year fee reduction.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

This was reflective of the muted confidence amongst clients and candidates, which slowed the pace of job moves. Average fees, however, were slightly up year on year, seeing the benefit from wage inflation and underpinned by stable fee rates as clients continue to value our services. In recruitment outsourcing, fees were down 18% with non perm volume hiring more resilient than perm volume hiring, reflective of client caution in the financial services sector that forms much of our customer base. Within recruitment outsourcing, we did see good growth in the workforce consultancy offering with fees up 24% on the prior year, driven by a higher average number of consultants. Our third service line, a talent advisory, which launched in 2023, delivered strong operational progress with the number of clients served almost doubling in 2024 versus the prior year.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

In terms of our regional segments, with the exception of The UK, fees were down broadly in line with the 14% reduction seen group wide. We've included further regional detail on the slide, which I'll leave you to digest at your leisure. Let's turn now to the financial review, where I'll begin with the group financial summary. The continued challenging conditions in hiring markets globally drove a 14% reduction in group net fee income year on year to GBP321 million. Around two thirds of that year on year fee income impact was mitigated through cost actions with group operating costs falling by 9%.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

However, operating profit of around GBP 5,000,000 was still clearly impacted by the reduced top line trading. This resulted in a breakeven position at the profit before tax level and a 9.1p loss per share. Net cash finished the year at GBP 52,500,000.0 and in view of the group's balance sheet strength, the Board is proposing a final dividend of 17p per share, which together with the 6.5p income dividend, gives us a total dividend of 23.5p per share, in line with that of the prior year. Now I remarked a moment ago that around two thirds of the year on year fee income impact was offset through cost action. So let's now turn to look at our costs in more depth.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

Operating costs across the group reduced by GBP 44,000,000 year on year. With around 75% of the cost base comprising people costs, the reduction was clearly focused in this area. Average group headcount fell by 15% year on year, which drove a £27,000,000 reduction in fixed staff costs. Within this, Feona average headcount also fell by 15% as we remain highly selective on the replacement of Fiona natural attrition through the year, whilst non Fiona average headcount fell by 16%, driven by a lower level of Fiona support staff. Variable compensation fell by around £11,000,000 reflecting the reduced trading result.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

Non staff costs were also managed down during the year, falling by around GBP 6,000,000 and driven by lower direct operating costs, such as marketing and travel. So in 2024, we took the necessary actions to ensure our cost base was appropriate for the current end markets. And this resulted in us exiting the year with a monthly cost base run rate of around £25,000,000 to £26,000,000 down from around GBP27 million to GBP28 million at the beginning of the year. Turning to look at cash, we saw negative free cash flow for the year of GBP8 million, with lower operating cash flow driven by the challenging trading performance. There's a broadly neutral working capital cash impact with a lower year on year receivables balance offset by a decrease in payables.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

Overall CapEx of around GBP 10,000,000 was down around a third on the prior year, principally driven by lower spend on the group's office estate, where 2023 has seen a number of refurbishment projects in some of our large offices. Intangibles CapEx, but only being spent on Zenith, was in line with the prior year as the rollout nears completion. Turning now to consider capital allocation. The foundation of our policy is to maintain year end net cash of at least £50,000,000 and our 2024 closing position was consistent with that. As a reminder, our capital allocation priorities are set out on this slide.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

Firstly, we seek to fund organic investment opportunities that enhance the Group's growth drivers and provide sufficient headroom above our cost of capital. For example, we have above average, above group average margin service line diversification opportunities in interim management, workforce consultancy and talent advisory. And in addition, we have our investment in the Zenith CRM. Our second priority is the ordinary dividend, where our policy targets a distribution that is between one point seven five and two point two five times covered by earnings, albeit with the latitude as at present to allow cover to fall outside this range at points in the cycle. Here, the Group's continued balance sheet strength gives the Board confidence to propose a final dividend in line with that of the prior year.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

The Board remains cognizant, however, of the need to return to the targeted cover range in an appropriate time scales. And finally, should the group hold cash in excess of the £50,000,000 target and should the Board expect this position to continue for the medium term, we will look to return excess capital to shareholders. Turning now to look at guidance. Firstly, with regard to top line trading, this has continued to be muted over the first few weeks of the new financial year. I would remind you that the group's Asia Pacific weighting means the first quarter has historically been quieter.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

Combined with this, our planning assumption is that an improvement in end markets is unlikely to be seen before the latter part of 2025. As such, we would anticipate a slight second half weighting to fee income. Secondly, with regards to costs, as I touched on earlier, we exited 2024 with a monthly run rate of around GBP25 million to GBP26 million. We take good momentum from our actions last year into 2025, and we'll continue to ensure our cost base is appropriate for the current end markets, remaining highly selective on the replacement of Fiona Natural Nutrition. And thirdly, turning to consider cash.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

We expect movement in cash over the first half to be in line with the typical profile, whereby payment of the ordinary dividend and fee owner bonuses drives a lower net cash position of the half year compared to the full year. That being said and consistent with our expectations for second half weighting to fee income over the year, we would anticipate a more balanced first half working capital cash impact than seen last year. So we've taken appropriate near term cost actions in the current environment. We are though also pursuing a wider program in five specific areas as shown on the slide, which we believe are building blocks to a higher margin business. At our capital markets event last year, we set out our conviction on how the business can operate with greater levels of efficiency and at higher rates of profitability.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

So let's turn now to consider the key actions we have been taking, where we saw early progress in 2024 and the opportunity ahead of us in 2025. The first building block is driving higher fee owner productivity. This of course applies to all of our service lines, but given the 83% of group net fee income that comes from specialist recruitment and that two thirds of fees in that service line relate to permanent placements, we recognize how much of a driver of our overall financial performance perm placements per perm fee earner per month is. We increased focus on this metric around the business during the year. It is being used to allocate fee earner headcount with a greater regard to where it drives the most benefit.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

That said, across the Specialist Recruitment Service line, perm placements per perm fee earner per month did decrease by 5% year on year, reflecting our decision not to reduce fee earner headcount wholly proportionally with volumes. However, we did see growth in this measure in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia held flat. And we continue to see the capacity in our current Fiona base to absorb higher volumes of perm placements, with average volume productivity through 2024, about 30% below the peak levels reached in the second quarter of twenty twenty two and around 15% below the long run average pre COVID. On entering 2025, our specialist recruitment teams are focusing even harder on the sales funnel, whereby well cultivated client relationships lead to new job flow, which in turn works through the various stages of a process to enter the candidate placed in role. Our key technology investments will also continue to support increased productivity in the medium term.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

As a reminder, with a fundamentally relationship based business model, we deploy technology for our fee earners that enables them to spend even more time with clients and candidates. We are seeing the efficiency benefits of this today and that gives us confidence on driving higher fee and productivity from the time released. A great example of this is with our AI job ad writer, which we showed in action at our Capital Markets event. During 2024, the tool was used to write over 21,000 job ads, freeing up around ten thousand hours. Our rollout of Zenith, our in house CRM, will also support higher fee owner productivity in the medium term, driven by quicker navigation of the system versus its predecessor and the increased visibility Zenith delivers for our teams.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

So it's great to reach the milestone in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four of two thirds of our Specialist Recruitment business being live on Zenith, following the deployment into Northeast Asia. Our remaining rollout into Europe and ANZ, scheduled for deployment by the half year, will complete the migration and we're looking forward to seeing the benefits it drives across our markets. And it's worth noting that whilst we place particularly high emphasis on the volume productivity element, that is placement volumes per fee owner and it's the most controllable for our consultants, overall productivity in terms of net fee income per fee owner was at 1% year on year in constant currency, underpinned by the stable fee rates of a service offering the clients continue to value. Turning now to the optimization in both the front and the back office. We recognize an opportunity to bring greater consistency to our ways of working in the front office, particularly regarding the proportion of fee earner support staff we deploy relative to fee earners.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

By the year end, we had further rebalanced this mix, such that it is in line with 2021 levels and down from a peak reached in March 2023. There's now greater consistency across our markets in how we deploy the owner support staff and a more disciplined approach in the level of headcount required. Our actions here drove a 1,000,000 structural saving in 2024. Our back office optimization is about standardizing processes in our central functions, such as HR, technology and finance, and then where appropriate, consolidating these activities to global business services hubs or GBS, thereby minimizing duplication in our local markets. During the year, the HR function delivered its optimization program, a new target operating model was defined and these changes will deliver £1,500,000 of savings in 2025.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

So with our technology functions having moved to a GBS model a few years ago and HR having done so in 2024, we see the opportunity this year for other central functions to do the same. The next in scope for this year and into 2026 is the finance function where, for example, there are good opportunities to move some transactional processing activities out of local markets and into a hub location. We anticipate some modest net in year savings this year from doing so, which will then annualize into 2026. In aggregate, once these programs are completed across our central functions in 2026, we believe there is a structural cost saving opportunity in excess of £7,000,000 from 2027 onwards compared to our cost base last year. As well as this, we will have an operating model able to service higher volumes activity as end markets recover.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

We anticipate there may be scope to deliver certain benefits sooner and we will balance this against the one off cost implications of doing so. Turning now to consider the fourth building block, office optimization. We are appraising our office network more vigorously and during the year, we took the decision to reduce our footprint in The UK, France and New Zealand by four offices. We are challenging ourselves in locations where we have not consistently been profitable and we do not see a pathway to adequate returns. We will continue to appraise those locations in our office network where the returns profile is most challenged and factoring in the least renewed profile, realize savings where appropriate.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

As well as consolidating a number of offices in our network, we'll also optimize the locations we have through proactive renegotiation ahead of lease expiry. Our recent actions in both consolidating the network and renegotiating leases has yielded a £500,000 saving for 2026, and there are further opportunities we see arising over the rest of this year. Whilst a modest saving, the action reflects the first step of our commitment to reallocate capital to those elements of our portfolio where we can be most competitive. And finally, turning to procurement. We're really pleased with the early progress delivered here with proactive contract and commercial reviews combined with general cost challenge delivering annualized savings of around

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

GBP 1,400,000.0.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

In 2025, we anticipate further opportunities for saving in the element of spend that becomes addressable this year. And in addition, we will be growing the capabilities to more robustly manage our transactional suppliers and drive consolidation. So in conclusion then, we've made good early progress against the five building blocks of our margin improvement program. Over GBP 4,000,000 of structural cost savings have been delivered thus far, with opportunities identified for at least a further GBP 5,500,000.0 savings after our GBS program completes next year. We'll continue to realize benefits even prior to recovery in end markets, and this leaves us well placed to drive expansion in the conversion rate through a strong drop through of fees to operating profit once conditions improve.

[David Bower, CFO & Director at Robert Walters]

So with that, I'll hand you back to Tony.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

Thanks, David. So we are pursuing our margin improvement opportunities with clear focus. As well as this though, we continue to have high conviction in our organic growth drivers of geographic penetration and service line diversification. We saw good progress in 2024 and there is more ahead of us for 2025. So turning first more briefly to geographic penetration.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

Whilst a key element of our growth in the 2010s was focused on geographic expansion with entry into 11 new country markets during that time, our focus is now on penetration, which means scaling in our existing markets. We shared our four box model at the Capital Markets event, the framework through which we appraise our specialist recruitment markets and the clear set of actions by which we manage the different quadrants of the portfolio. During 2024, we took actions in line with our framework. In markets in the top left quadrant where the structural drivers are favorable but our internal controllables require improvement, we need to first fix before we seek to grow. David has already mentioned increased focus on the sales funnel to drive fee and productivity and this also provides a prime example of what fixing the basics looks like in practice.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

It looks like clear expectations on how much time consultants are spending on business development and key account management so that we drive higher job flow into the top of the funnel. Importantly, this is then reinforced with scheduled monthly reviews to check progress and further course correct if required. Sometimes reincorporating these structured processes into our business is best done with new leadership. In this way, it has been great to see the next generation of leaders taking roles in our business to accelerate the drive for disciplined entrepreneurialism in some of our markets. And during 2024, we welcome new leadership in Southern Europe and also a fresh perspective in Northern Europe and Australia.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

In markets in the top right quadrant of the framework with favorable structural drivers and where our internal controllables are largely being maximized, we are seeking to invest to grow our platform. In the context of the current challenging end markets, that has meant rebalancing how our FIOA headcount is allocated, such that our platform remains strongest in these markets. Average fee owner headcount fell by 11% in this top right quadrant versus an 18% fall in markets in the top left. Perhaps the leading example in our portfolio of a geographically well penetrated market is Japan. The capital markets event, we set out the strong foundations for continuing to grow our offering there, namely the long run skill shortages entailed by Japan's aging population and Robert Walters' differentiated position as seen in our strong brand awareness and hard to replicate assets, such as our candidate database of English speaking native Japanese professionals, the largest of its kind.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

Looking out over the rest of this decade, we know there is more to go for in Japan. And one indicator of this we saw in 2024 was in the Temp business, where volumes grew driving a 6% increase in Temp net fee income, which represented just over a quarter of the mix. Together, with the scope there is for Japan to close some of the volume productivity gap with the global specialist recruitment business, we continue to be very excited about Japan as an engine for growth for the business. Turning now to service line diversification. I remain really excited by the opportunity we have to support clients and candidates in the ever changing world of work.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

In my twenty five years in the industry, this pace of change is perhaps as rapid as ever and with the tens of thousands of candidates we match with organizations each year, we are at the forefront of seeing these shifts, some of which are highlighted on this slide. In the context of the last two years, I am often asked why I am confident in the long term growth drivers of our business. A large part of the answer is the clear value we can deliver in the environment of today's hiring markets. And to take one very current example, the impact of artificial intelligence on recruitment. Our conviction is that far from being disintermediated, this shift makes the role of the human recruiter even more relevant.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

Why? Well, the use of AI has seen organizations flooded with applications of increasing quality and increasing similarity. This is user generated, AI augmented, two dimensional data. And in response, organizations are asking, what's the truth? What we offer in our specialist recruitment service line is a three-dimensional validated view of a candidate or in fact a client.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

We have met all our candidates and all our clients. We understand their motivations, their aspirations, their achievements and we can validate the contents of a profile or CV. We know their stories and no technology can replace that end to end. Sahari markets are changing and we have repositioned our business in response. And this is clearly seen in our unified brand which enables our clients to access our full suite of talent solutions.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

It is also seen in the service line diversification that we are pursuing. We are focusing on investment into service lines with outsized growth opportunity and above group average margins and these are interim management with our specialist recruitment service line, workforce consultancy within our recruitment outsourcing service line and our talent advisory service line. In all three areas, our twenty twenty four performance gave us further belief on the opportunity we have to drive longer term growth. So turning first to interim management, This is where we support organizations' need for highly experienced senior professionals who are engaged on a self employed basis for a fixed duration. Often this is necessitated by a transformational corporate event such as an acquisition or major technology implementation.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

Today, we offer this service in The Netherlands, France, Belgium and Germany. And as David mentioned earlier, our 24 fee income performance down just 2% really stood out in the context of the pressure on volumes in the wider European temp market. We saw average interims working slightly up year on year with a broadly stable picture in The Netherlands and growth in Germany and Belgium, particularly strong in the case of the latter, offsetting a small decline in France. Furthermore, the conversion rate remained group leading and well in excess of the upper teens' medium term target we have set for the group as a whole, underpinned by the structurally higher fee rates given the value clients place on accessing these supply short skills. Turning now to workforce consultancy, where we give organizations a solution to their non permanent hiring needs distinct from the traditional routes of contractors and consultancies and at substantially lower cost.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

Our '24 performance with fee income up 24% year on year was driven by a higher average number of consultants deployed into the managed service provider client base in The UK, which is the segment into which we launched the offering back in 2022. MSP or non perm volume hiring represents just one of the pools of client demand for which we believe the workforce consultancy offering is relevant. Back at our Capital Markets event, we highlighted the opportunity for workforce consultancy to be deployed into two further client pools. Firstly, statement of work, where a procurement service for non permanent project resources or professional services is required. And then secondly, in support of organizations seeking to access early in career talent given our ability to hire, train and then deploy these candidates.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

And we have seen excellent early progress tapping into both of these pools with the first cohorts of consultants now deployed with clients. As we look ahead over the rest of 2025, we see a clear opportunity to drive further growth in workforce consultancy by providing solutions into these adjacent pools of client spend alongside the managed service provider space where we already have strong credentials. Turning now to Talent Advisory, the most recent addition to our service lines in which we offer three core services of market intelligence, future of work advisory and talent development. We have focused on building client awareness of the offering by leveraging our two more established service lines. We saw momentum build strongly through 2024 with the number of referrals in the second half doubling compared to the first.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

And it has been very pleasing to see these opportunities converting into fees with the number of clients served in 2024 almost doubling versus the prior year. Organizations globally are grappling with challenges regarding how they cost effectively attract, retain and develop the talent they need to thrive. And this was borne out in talent advisory serving clients in each of our regional segments during the year. Looking ahead to 2025, the reaction to the offering across our markets means we are excited about further growing the platform through regional engagement leads who will drive direct sales of talent advisory services. As well as boosting client awareness of our talent advisory offering, we are seeking to drive up the understanding of our own people on the full suite of talent solutions we offer.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

This broader knowledge enables them to ask clients the right questions, which then lead to conversations on their wider talent challenges. We want our fioners to remain expert in their service line, but sufficiently conversant in all the services we offer to recognize the key buying signals from our clients and make the introduction with the relevant part of the business. This awareness and sharing of leads across service lines has been accelerated by our global collaboration days. And during these days, our people have come together across different service lines and across all of our global markets to better understand the range of services we have to help our clients. Now as internal awareness grows, so does commercial opportunity and we held our second Global Collaboration Day last month and it yielded over 1,700 new client meetings for our business in just one day.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

Boosting our own people's awareness of our suite of services reflects our conviction on what our clients need us to be for them, namely a total talent solutions provider. And this was the key impulse behind our decision to bring all our services under a single brand. Getting this right for our clients will not only help us achieve our vision of being the most trusted talent solutions business, but it will help us convert a significant commercial opportunity. And this is brought out well on the charts on this slide. The first, which we shared at our Capital Markets event, shows the scope to boost client awareness of our services outside specialist recruitment.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

Now as we do so, we are confident we will see growth in the number of countries in which we are delivering all three of our service lines, up from five in 2024. And even within a service line, greater awareness across our teams will help us convert commercial opportunities and that's brought out in the second chart where for our UK specialist recruitment business, you can see we have placed candidates into two or more disciplines for only 21% of our clients in 2024. We are determined to seize these opportunities on our journey to be the most trusted talent solutions provider. So in conclusion then, whilst our financial performance was impacted by the challenging conditions seen across global hiring markets, 2024 was a year of strong strategic development for our business. We have seen good early progress in our self help measures to drive structurally higher margins over the medium term And we continue to be excited by the long term growth drivers on which we are focused.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

So thank you for listening. And David and I would now be very happy to take any questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. And the first question is from Thomas Callum from Investec. Please go ahead.

[Tom Callan, Equity Analyst at Investec]

Good morning, Japs. Hope you're both well. I've got two, please. Firstly, just on the interim business. Clearly a strong year relative to the broader group.

[Tom Callan, Equity Analyst at Investec]

Could you provide maybe just a bit more color on what drove the outperformance in both Belgium and The Netherlands, including your outlook for the interim sort of business overall moving through 2025? And then just thinking longer term, as markets expand, do you sort of see the business naturally pivoting towards an increased sort of Asia Pac focus, leveraging what you've built so successfully in Japan and sort of capitalizing on those outside secular growth markets that are out there, for example, Southeast Asia that we heard quite a bit about at the CMD? Thanks.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

Hi, Tom. Yes, it's Toby here. I'll take both of those. So first question on interim. I mean, look, firstly, they are well run.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

We have seen good growth in Belgium and Germany, where we're obviously still building out the offering. It's been, I would say, stable in The Netherlands. I mean the drivers are really highlighted, as I was saying earlier, and common across those markets. It's a very highly skilled, disciplined area. There is a short supply.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

I think I've touched on the past, I think psychologically a lot of senior candidates are looking for more of those interim six, nine, twelve month type contracts, perhaps a bit more of a leaning to that towards some of the C level permanent type roles. I think outlook in The Netherlands is a bit more regulatory burden for clients to deal with, but we're very used to working through that. So we're confident that Interim will continue to deliver very strong conversion rates for us and arguably in time, and it isn't now, but perhaps something for us to consider more in our Asia Pacific markets. Longer term, I think your question on sort of APAC focus, so Asia Pacific currently 43% of fees, that's been relatively stable at that level for about the last ten years. As I mentioned in the presentation, there's absolutely more to go for in Japan.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

We had some good strong performances in areas like Southeast Asia. Malaysia was a standout there. So I think I mean the ultimate answer is we'll manage a portfolio in line with the four box framework. And in the top right where we have the right to grow, there are for sure a number of Asia Pacific markets. But equally, Europe remains important.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

We've got strong interim presence there and we also got some key outsourcing HQs in The U. S. As well. So I wouldn't depending on the shape of the recovery, I wouldn't be surprised if Asia Pacific mix ticks up a bit.

[Tom Callan, Equity Analyst at Investec]

Really clear. Thanks guys.

[Operator]

The next question is from Sanjay Vidyati from Panmura Liberum. Please go ahead.

[Sanjay Vidyarthi, MD, Business Services Analyst at Panmure Liberum]

Good morning, Toby. David, a couple of questions for me as well. First, in a market that's perhaps a bit more difficult such as France, can you talk a little bit about how you might be pivoting from one sector to another where there might be more growth? How much opportunity is there to do that? How easy is it to do that if your consultants focus on one particular discipline?

[Sanjay Vidyarthi, MD, Business Services Analyst at Panmure Liberum]

Is there an appetite to shift to another where the growth is? And then second question, just you mentioned AI and how I can see how it went to disintermediate the specialist recruiters. But can you talk a little bit about is it in the short term at least maybe creating extra work for you if you are inundated with applications, applicants and have used AI? How do you deal with that side of things?

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

Yes, sure. Hi, Sajid. Sorry, Toby here. I'll probably take both of those as well. Let me start with the technology question.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

I mean, it's so is it creating more work for us? Well, the reality is what we're seeing at the moment, it's definitely creating more work for our clients. If you get the chance, there's a very interesting article in the Feet about a business called Anthropic, who is an AI start up business. Now given even what they do as an AI start up business, they are not wanting to see candidates applying to them using AI. And the quote I got is they want to gauge applicants' personal interests sincerely and without mediation.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

So yes, I go back to the sort of two d, three d analogy. I think whether it's LinkedIn technology, you're getting increasing two dimensional data coming through. And what our clients are telling us is that and it is a bit like it was in the advent of Job Board, just the volume of data is immense. So obviously, we need to support them and tell them the truth on what they're receiving. I think just some other sort of ad hoc things we're seeing, It's interesting HR, ER, we're seeing an increased need for people there.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

I think what you've got now is an environment where people are able to type in grievances they might have. You're seeing increased number of applications in terms of grievances. Of course, that requires staff to support that. I think in terms of your other question, appetite to shift, my view on that is that we will take a look at P and Ls. We have merged in France.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

I think you mentioned we've merged a number of P and Ls and we've redeployed good people into growth markets. Obviously, they have the recruitment skills. It takes a little longer to upskill in terms of the specific sector. But as you know, one of our core strengths is that we tend to hire people from that sector and then we upskilled them with the recruitment training. The other key thing of course is the international ability to relocate people.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

So we've had a number of people move internally to perhaps markets that are a bit more dynamic, for example, Japan.

[Sanjay Vidyarthi, MD, Business Services Analyst at Panmure Liberum]

Okay, understood. That's great. Thanks very much.

[Operator]

Thank you. And we have a question from Steve Wolf from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Steve Woolf, Analyst at Deutsche Numis]

Hi, morning, both. Just sort of any thoughts you have around about where we are with this logjam, whether you have seen your typical job flow coming back post Christmas. I appreciate, you know, there's a couple of months of data and it's it's a relatively soft period anyway. But just any specific sectors that you might have seen, you know, job flow being particularly strong and whether it really is just this element of, you know, candidate confidence on wishing to, you know, not wishing to leave versus the company's willingness to only have sort of the the perfect candidate. I mean, it's something that's just come up on the on the the page call.

[Steve Woolf, Analyst at Deutsche Numis]

I just wonder what your your thoughts were around this, you know, log jam and and flexibility on both sides. Sorry, it's a very vague question.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

No, that's fine. I mean, it's kind of all that you've just said to be honest with you, Steve. I mean, there are pockets. Yeah, I was down in Asia Pacific, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore last couple of weeks. I think there is a sense of perhaps a bit more optimism in places like Australia.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

New Zealand is remaining very challenging with the public sector cuts there. Malaysia, interesting, that's a market that's done very well for us. It's also quite an attractive sort of offshoring center as well, increasingly so for clients, so there's some good activity there. So it's sort of market by market. Sector wise, supply chain procurement, that's holding up very well.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

Legal continues to be a buoyant area. Finance particularly transformation. So tech is still I mean it's a big market for us that's still a bit slow more broadly. So nothing material really that I can comment on now, so we're still seeing largely a bit of a flow through from December. I think your comment around January and February being softer months is true given the seasonality.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

So I think March as ever will be a critical time.

[Steve Woolf, Analyst at Deutsche Numis]

Cool. Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. As there are no further questions with this, I'd like to hand the call back over to Toby for any additional or closing remarks.

[Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director at Robert Walters]

No. Just to say thank you very much for your time and no doubt we'll see you all soon. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Toby Fowlston, CEO & Executive Director
• David Bower, CFO & Director

Analysts

• Tom Callan, Equity Analyst at Investec
• Sanjay Vidyarthi, MD, Business Services Analyst at Panmure Liberum
• Steve Woolf, Analyst at Deutsche Numis