Penna Consulting has revealed healthy pre-tax profits of £3.5m in its interim results for the six months to 30 September 2009.
The HR consultancy group said revenue grew by 68% to £48.4m, compared to last year’s figure of £28.9m. Penna’s outplacement and career transition business, which has strongly benefited from the recession, now accounts for 25% of turnover, with 75% accountable to recruitment and related services.
Penna said the integration of recruitment advertising firm Barkers, following its £8.6m acquisition in June, had gone smoothly and was almost complete. In the three months trading since its acquisition, Barkers produced revenue of £16.4m and a pre-tax profit of £100,000.
Penna’s chairman, Stephen Rowlinson, said: “Once again our long-established businesses produced growth in revenue and a very substantial increase in profit before tax. This was a result of improving margins and close control of operating costs.
“Because our cyclical recruitment business is three times bigger than our counter-cyclical outplacement business, we can be confident that Penna will be a major beneficiary of the upturn when it comes.”
Rowlinson also hinted that the firm would look to make more acquisitions in the HR consulting market.
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