CPL couple make €18.75m sale

THE husband-and-wife team behind recruitment firm CPL Resources were nearly €20 million richer last night after selling part of their stake in the company.

Chief executive Anne Heraty yesterday sold 5m shares at €3.75 a share, netting €18.75m.

Ms Heraty and her husband Paul still remain the company's largest shareholders. Ms Heraty's remaining 15m shares are worth €60m.

In a statement to the stock market, CPL said that chairman John Hennessy sold 500,000 shares at €3.75, netting €1.87m.

Earlier yesterday, the company said it is planning to hit the acquisition trail this year.

While it claims no deal is imminent, it is more likely that any takeover focus will be in the area of temporary recruitment rather than agencies dealing with permanent job placements.

CPL has cash balances of nearly €11m and sees the move as necessary because of continuing skills shortages in certain sectors of the Irish jobs market. Any new acquisition is also likely to be used as a way for the firm to enter new sectors of the recruitment market.

The company also says it is well positioned to enjoy a good full year, following a strong performance for the first six months of its current financial year and a good start to the second half.

Results, issued yesterday, for the six months to the end of December showed the company's half-year revenues rise by 34% on the corresponding period in 2004 to €66.3m; pre-tax profits increase by 79% to €4.6m and earnings per share jump from 6c, a year earlier, to 10.6c.

Gross profit saw a year-on-year increase of 41% from €9.3m to €13.1m.

Net free income in the company's permanent placement business rose by 50% on a year-on-year basis aided by growth in the demand for IT, telecoms and finance professionals and its temporary fees increased by 33%, thanks mainly to the growth in demand for non-permanent staff in areas like administration, customer service, engineering, office management, healthcare, biotechnology and manufacturing.

CPL is viewed, first and foremost, as one of the country's leading temporary/contract staff agencies, placing around 20,000 workers in this manner every year. It also places approximately 9,000 permanent jobs per annum.

The company's executive search and selection consultancy division, BroadReach International, and its CPL Managed Services arm, which manages call centres and various administrative services for clients, also performed well during the period.

CPL chief executive Anne Heraty said: "We've had a good start to the second half and we've benefited hugely from the strong economy in Ireland over the last number of years.

"With 30% of our business being IT recruitment an area where we dominate in this country we're deliberately widening our capacity over a range of recruitment sectors, both permanent and temporary."