Hays boosts profits

Personnel group Hays - which has more than 200 offices in the UK and Ireland - today said its core recruitment division had delivered an “excellent” performance as it confirmed it will hive off its mail business later this year.

The company, based in Guildford, England, said the specialist recruitment arm helped lift annual operating profits by 13%, as it continued its recovery from the recent downturn.

Hays, which has undergone a major restructuring by selling non-core operations to concentrate on recruitment and human resources, confirmed the demerger of mail business DX will be completed by November.

Shareholders in the FTSE 100 Index group will get stakes in two separately-listed companies as a result of the move, which was first announced in June.

Following the demerger of DX, Hays plans to return at least £200m (€294.7m) to shareholders through a buy-back of its shares.

It came as Hays posted operating profits before goodwill and exceptionals of £166.1m (€244.8m) for the year to June 30, after what it described as a “period of significant achievement”.

Chairman Bob Lawson said: “The recovery that we began to experience in the first half accelerated, justifying our continued investment in the business over the recent downturn and in the current year.”

Hays Personnel serves customers including Vodafone, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Fujitsu.

The results included a 17% hike in operating profits at the specialist recruitment arm, which saw rises across all three of its regions. Accountancy and finance, as well as information technology, were particularly strong contributors.

The company said that following the demerger, it will focus exclusively on specialist recruitment. DX specialises in business-to-business mail services in the UK and Ireland, delivering more than one million items a day.

Trading within DX remains in line with expectations and Hays said it was well-positioned to take advantage of the new regulatory environment of the UK mail industry.

At the bottom line, Hays posted pre-tax profits of £147.7m (€217.7m) against a deficit of £444.8m (€655.5m).