Empresaria’s first half fails to impress

The price of shares in AIM-listed staffing outfit Empresaria (LON:EMR) dropped by 5.86% to 60.25p (as of 11:00 BST) as its pre-tax profits sank by 41% for the six months ended 30th June. Revenues fell by 2%, largely due to a change in income mix.

CEO Rhona Driggs commented: “We are encouraged by our net fee income growth and we remain focused on efforts to further improve organic growth across the Group. Although as expected, profit in the first half was lower than the prior year we remain on track to meet full year market expectations for profit.”

“Our core geographies continue to show economic growth but there are headwinds from Brexit, a weakening German economy and increased geo-political risk. Operationally we are taking steps to ensure that we are truly leveraging the benefits of being a diversified group. As part of this, we have recently announced the alignment of our business into core sectors to improve collaboration and to leverage synergies in our operations. Our diversified and specialist model provides a hedge against exposure to any one region or sector.”

“We believe the actions we are taking are the right ones and that we are well placed to continue to drive organic growth and to improve profitability“.