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Hays PLC on Thursday announced board member Dirk Hahn as its incoming new chief executive officer, as it posted a decline in annual profit and significantly lowered its special dividend compared to a year ago. Further, the company announced it will reduce its consultant headcount by around 3% to 4% in the first quarter of financial 2024, which ends on September 30. As at June 30, the consultant headcount had decreased 4.9% to 8,590 from 9,037 a year prior. The company stated that it continued ‘our focus on driving consultant productivity and returns from our investments.’ The London-based recruitment company said for the financial year to June 30, pretax profit fell 6.0% to £192.1 million from £204.3 million a year prior. However, it reported ‘record’ net fees of £1.29 billion, up 8.8% from £1.19 billion. This was driven by a good performance in Temp, though Perm also saw modest growth. ‘Growth [was] driven by our actions to increase fee margins, supported by positive effects of wage inflation globally, offsetting volume decline as Perm markets toughened through the year,’ it explained. Hays reported other comprehensive loss for the year net of tax of £91.2 million for financial 2023, compared to other comprehensive income of £41.5 million a year prior. Further, it announced a negative charge of £95.1 million relating to actuarial remeasurement of defined benefit pension schemes, compared to a gain of £39.6 million a year prior. The firm proposed a 5.3% increase to core dividends at 3.00p, up from 2.85p, as well as a further 2.24p special payout, down sharply from 7.34p. This lowers the total dividend by 49% to 5.24p from 10.19p a year prior. Additionally, the company announced board member Dirk Hahn will take over as its new chief executive from next Friday, replacing Alistair Cox. The company previously in February announced that outgoing CEO Cox is stepping down from the role. Hahn is currently managing director of the company’s Germany and Continental Europe, Middle East & Africa arms. Hays shares were 0.1% lower at 103.20 pence each on early Thursday morning in London. Copyright 2023 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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