Good morning and welcome to the Staffline Group PLC Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in a scenario mode. Questions are encouraged and could be submitted at any time via the Q&A tab situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll, and then I'd like to hand you over to Albert Ellis, CEO. Good morning, sir.
Many, many thanks, and welcome everybody. Thank you for giving up your time this morning to come to the investor results for 2024 for the Staffline Group. You have got myself, Albert Ellis, the Chief Executive Officer, and I am joined by Daniel Quint, my Chief Financial Officer. Without further ado, let's go straight into the highlights. As you can see, the main point of this morning was to confirm the results of last year, which we pre-announced in a pre-closing trading statement, highlighting that the business, in terms of hours, was up 10% in the year compared to the prior year. A really strong performance in hours, and this was mainly driven by new business. This was in the food distribution, essential logistics, and food distribution networks where we are providing mainly blue-collar labor.
Interestingly, perm revenue was up too, and this is against the background of a very weak recruitment market. Once again, through a strategy that's been implemented to target perm revenue increases where it's possible, I'm so pleased that we were able to lift perm by a double digit during the year. One of the metrics that we follow very closely is a conversion ratio, and this really demonstrates the efficiency of any recruiter and takes the percentage of operating profit as a percentage of gross profit and maps it against its peers. We've risen by over 20% there to 14.3%, one of the best conversion ratios as a group that we've seen and we've reported in recent times. When we come on to the divisional businesses, I'll go through their individual ratios, which are absolutely stunning. Share buybacks, we've been active in the market.
We bought back almost a fifth of our equity over the last just under two years at an average price of 32. And all this activity has been from trading cash flow. Net cash at the end of the year, Daniel will go into that in his section, and he will also talk about some of the details with the disposal of People Plus, which we, as a board, after a strategic review, deemed it to be non-core as its training and employability to recruitment, and we disposed of GBP 12 million. And you would have seen that announcement a couple of months ago if you were watching. With that, over to Daniel. Just before we go over to Daniel, I was going to go through, for those of you that do not know us, just a quick snapshot of the group.
You can see we've got Staffline, and this is all to the disposal of People Plus. You've got Staffline GB, which is England, Wales, and Scotland. It is just under GBP 900 million. You've got Staffline Ireland, which is the island of Ireland, both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and that's just a little over EUR 100 million in revenue. There are some of the sort of key clients, and I'll talk about those in the section on recruitment, but some really top brands and customers that we have in the group, which we're very proud of. As you can see on the left-hand side, the scale and reach of the group is quite phenomenal, right across these islands with 40,000 temp workers at our peak and on over 400 customer sites. The scale and reach of the business is really its key differentiator. Daniel.
Thank you, Albert. Good morning, everyone. Very good to be presenting to you today in what is, of course, very interesting times running a business in the current economic climate. We stand, or we sit here today with a business that, as Albert alluded to earlier, has been developed over the last few years with a really strong strategy of getting close to our customers and supporting them through good times, but also challenging times. Hence, we have the results that we have today for FY2024. Very pleased to report revenue up 14% to GBP 992.9 million, that's partly as a result of an increase in the National Living Wage, but very much driven by the growth that we've seen, organic growth in our key food and logistics customers.
The real sign of that is our fees, gross profit up 10.3% across the recruitment businesses, which, of course, when benchmarking across the rest of the recruitment sector, is helped by the fact that we are a 90% plus temp free worker model business. I think the perm businesses have been a bit challenged in 2024 versus 2023, although, as Albert's already mentioned, our perm is actually up 17%, a real laser focus on taking on the risk and really good permanent contracts in both GB and Ireland. All of those things, the temporary worker model, the laser focus on winning really great permanent activity work has driven that gross profit up 10.3%. The final cog in the wheel is an absolute, really drilled attention to cost control.
That's enabled underlying operating profit to increase 40.3% from GBP 7.2 million to GBP 10.1 million, driven, as Albert alluded to earlier, by that conversion, as you can see in the bottom under that graph, conversion improving across the group from 11.2% to 14.3%. These numbers provide the group with a great platform for 2025, not ignoring the fact that 2025, of course, has just seen the increase in employees' National Insurance and the current economic reality around tariffs. This group is really well prepared with really solid foundations. That takes me on to the next slide, which is regarding the financing. In FY2024, we saw net finance charges increase by GBP 1.2 million to GBP 4.9 million. That was partly driven from two things. Firstly, the slightly higher for longer interest rates than we were originally expecting, but more predominantly driven by our growth.
The great underlying operating profit growth on the previous slide more than accounted for that increase in finance charges. Of course, we have already seen three interest rate reductions since August last year and possibly some more during this year, which we'll see. Regarding cash, a great result at the end of the year, GBP 9.6 million of cash, up GBP 5.8 million on the prior year. From a financing headroom perspective, we ended the year with over GBP 75 million worth of financing headroom. This was a business that used to have GBP 100 million of net debt five years ago. We now have nearly GBP 10 million of net cash at the end of the year, and over GBP 75 million of financing headroom, something that we're very proud of.
I would like to comment at this stage, not just in terms of the trading performance of our management teams, senior teams, and throughout the organization, but also the finance team to be able to deliver these numbers, a really important contribution. Finally, on this slide, the covenant analysis leverage low, I would say, 0.4 times EBITDA and interest rate cover nearly 88 times. Finally, as Albert mentioned early on, I am just going to take a little moment to just present the detail on the disposal for GBP 12 million of People Plus. Before I do that detail, just the summary on this page is that the financing landscape that Staffline has now created for itself does leave us with opportunity for investment in organic growth.
Notwithstanding the challenging economic environment, we want to take opportunities where maybe others may not be able to deliver some of the trading contracts. We can do that, and we look for those opportunities from an organic perspective. This balance sheet and financing landscape will help us do that. Just some of the key characteristics of the People Plus transaction: cash consideration of GBP 12 million, which includes GBP 2 million of deferred. There was an offset for advanced payments received in respect of future revenue of GBP 5.1 million. Net consideration of GBP 6.9 million. That generates for us cash proceeds, which we will use to fund share buybacks, which we already announced on the 25th of February. We announced a 7.5 million share buyback, as well as the direction of travel I've already spoken about, which is working capital for organic growth.
We will be able to really deliver for customers, both old and new, on helping them to navigate the current environment. Finally, from me, just to show you the key components of the cash movement over the years, presented on a pre-IFRS 16 basis . The headline from this is that we actually generated in year GBP 10.2 million, which enabled us to do own share purchases, mostly share buybacks, some EBT purchases of GBP 4.4 million. The key elements of that cash driver, the strong trading cash flows, you can see there, and then the really strong tight working capital management, which generated an inflow of GBP 4 million. Some tight cost control, some tight balance sheet control underpinned by really strong performing business in 2024 leaves us with a strong position from which to support our customers in navigating the current environment.
I'll hand back to Albert to take us through the opportunity.
Thank you, Daniel. Just before I start on the strategy, which has actually now crystallized into a very simple proposition, and simplicity is actually in markets that we're facing at the moment really important. I just wanted to paint a little bit of a picture of the background under which we're operating. As you all well know, the tax increases in the October 2024 budget delivered by the Chancellor last year included increases in National Insurance for the employers, both on thresholds and on absolute cost of the payroll. That is a significant uplift, probably a little bit more than is expected. Business by and large has made some representations to government on how damaging this could be for jobs.
What we found is that we're working with our partners and our customers in a strategic relationship to ensure that we can absorb between us some of the costs, but also the pain and then share some of the gain through volume increases and by expanding our market share. We are taking these challenges head on, and we are using our strategy as a market leader to benefit the company and, of course, our customers. There has also been, obviously, the current market uncertainty that we've seen at the moment. Of course, the recruitment market in general has been quite subdued. We believe the answer to this is about market leadership, laser sharp focus, and also making sure that you've got your costs under control. I'll talk about that a little bit later.
The first point of our strategy is to capitalize and make sure that we continue to march forward as a strong deliverer of blue-collar in the GB market and the Ireland market, where we are actually the number one by some margin, and we leverage our scale and reach. That is our single largest competitive advantage. We have also been broadening the portfolio. We did state five years ago when Daniel and I first were at the helm of Staffline that we intended to increase permanent recruitment, being higher margin and cash generative. We were very keen to see the proportion of permanent recruitment improve. Indeed, over the years, the businesses have done fantastically well to focus and change their mix of services towards permanent fees, not demanding temp, but towards more permanent and experiencing the benefits of high margin cash generative.
Of course, this is just a cyclical thing, and we'll see permanent recruitment come back quite strongly in the recovery. For now, we're very pleased with our 17% uplift. Then you've got the Republic of Ireland, which is obviously part of the Eurozone. We feel this is a very important market. The Irish budget, the state budget, is actually in surplus, and we've seen demand there. As we've been growing over the years, we'll continue to invest in our fee earning capacity there. We're targeting large contract wins, and the most recent of which was the police force, the police service of the Republic of Ireland, An Garda Síochána. We're supporting the police force there with support and high-quality back office staff. Finally, cash is king, particularly at these times. We're underpinning all our organic growth with strong trading cash flow.
This is improving our balance sheet, particularly with the disposal of People Plus, and we're increasing our returns to shareholders. In a nutshell, our vision is to be a world-class focused pure-play recruiter with a clear market leader and trusted partner to our customers, always known for our excellent service, and, of course, adding the best-in-class governance that we can. Looking more closely now at the Recruitment GB results, I mean, these are absolutely stunning results. Credit to the team, Frank Atkinson and his very able team. They've done an absolutely amazing job in a challenging market. I mean, to drive hours up 10%, revenue slightly more than that, there's a little bit of inflation there from the minimum wage uplift for the year. Actually, 10% uplift on the previous year is a stunning result.
Actually, this has been achieved mainly in the food distribution and logistics sectors. They have had a continued focus on efficiency savings, not letting up the sharp focus on costs across the business. This is reflected in overall overheads being held back as gross profit has increased. I mean, the flow through to profit is stunning. I mean, that is a very high percentage for any recruiter to get in a good market, let alone the market that we are in today. We have also had a reasonably good peak, Christmas and Black Friday, very, very strong trading. Key customers, as I will talk to you in a minute, have all posted some good results over the Christmas period.
There you go with the perm fees again, driven by the G4S contract, which is a managed service, very innovative, and just shows that you can find perm fees even in difficult recruitment markets. Once again, this result has benefited from the scale, the focus on delivery excellence, without which we would not have any customers. Of course, there has been a flight to quality in the last few years, which we have benefited from. Now, talking a little bit more about these customers, I mean, if you look at Tesco, for example, we have increased our market share in all of these customers. In Tesco, particularly, we increased our market share through acquiring new depots from competitors and successfully demonstrating that we can deliver into those new depots at scale and manage transitions.
GXO has been a tremendous partner for us, and we've seen that they've benefited from the trend shift, third-party outsourcing, both with Sainsbury's and other companies. We've helped and supported GXO with their labor requirements. These are two specific brands where we've expanded our market share through excellence in delivery. You have Morrisons over there, where at the beginning of the year, we announced in 2024 that we had secured a sole supply ship, and we're delighted that that relationship is going as well as it has. We've also got half an eye on Wincanton, that's GXO's acquisition of Wincanton, where we do support the team there. We're obviously stand ready to support the combined entity as and when the Competition and Markets Authority sign that off. In summary, our market share of our top 20 customers improved by 27%.
At the half year, that was 17%. As you can see, we gathered momentum into the second half, which has continued into 2025. There is your hours graphs, and I talked about the 10% increase. This is the key metric that drives our profitability. You can see it accelerates through the second quarter. The gap gets bigger through the third quarter, and we end the year on a high there on weekly hours. A really strong performance by the team, and congratulations to them. Moving on to Ireland, this is also a slightly smaller business, perfectly formed. Tina McKenzie and her team have done an absolutely fantastic job lifting profits in a year where all recruiters posted declines and multiple profit warnings, lifted profits by GBP 1 million to GBP 2.8 million, and grew gross profit by 14.6%.
I mean, this business is far more white collar than blue collar. Ireland doesn't have volume and scale. I mean, its population is much smaller than the mainland. We are focusing on white collar recruitment there and HR consulting, as I'll come on to talk about. If you look at the revenue, just to give you an explanation on that being similar to the prior year, that's because in the temporary market, it hasn't really been very strong. It's been flat for the year, and we've not seen much growth. As I've said, there's been some headwinds on the temporary side, and the team has been focused on white collar recruitment, and in particular, where they've been able to provide some stunning HR consulting, which has boosted gross margins.
That, in particular, along with all the permanent recruitment that they've won, has boosted their gross profit by double digits. You can see permanent fees up 38% last year. You're not talking about a small business in the sense that it's not a market leader. It's a small business compared to GB, but actually, in the island of Ireland, Irish business is the market leader in Northern Ireland and is fast catching the market leaders in the Republic. A large brand to be reckoned with in Ireland. Operating profit has benefited from a tough control of costs, excellent profit conversion, both in Ireland and in GB, both touching 20%. I mean, those are absolutely stunning results. If you compare them right across the recruitment market, you won't see anything like that.
Finally, just a little note on the police services of the Republic of Ireland, where we've secured sole supplyship of their back office and their support staff recruitment. That's been mobilized. It's obviously cost us quite a bit of upfront mobilization costs and investment, and we're now starting to see the steady flow of requirements, which is good to see. Daniel.
Thank you, Albert. I just wanted to make some comments on ESG. This group sees a very, very important position from delivery, both to workers across GB and Ireland, as well as to the communities that our workers are in, in terms of its contribution to the ESG agenda and the ESG values that the group excels. There are a few of those. Some of these stats really represent those values that are very important to us. Of course, the core one is helping people into work. As you can see, we helped over 98,000 people into work. Secondly, helping unemployed people into work. Additionally, of course, addressing our carbon emissions. Like any business, we see a very, very important contribution to society in ensuring that we are operating in an environmentally efficient and focused manner. Therefore, we saw CO2 emissions decline year over year by over 54%.
Additionally, and I do want to mention this openly, that having divested of PeoplePlus , we actually are continuing our strategic commercial relationship with PeoplePlus . Therefore, the education in prisons and our relationships with PeoplePlus will allow us to support them in helping workers get jobs after they come out of prison. That is very, very important to the group as we move forward, having divested of PeoplePlus in February. All these things are very, very important for the group in ensuring that we are delivering value for shareholders, as well as contributing to the values that our stakeholders, our other stakeholders, employees, suppliers, our customers, and general society see as important regarding ESG. We will continue to drive that forward over the coming period.
I'll just hand back to Albert now to summarize the presentation, and then we'll move to Q&A after that.
Thank you, Daniel. Daniel makes a very good point about PeoplePlus and the relationship. We divested of PeoplePlus because it was non-core for us. We found a very, very good parent, a high-tech company that's got all the sort of positives that Staffline has, but additionally is years ahead in artificial intelligence, a company called Swipej obs. We have got a tremendous relationship, both with the owners, the leadership there, and indeed, we are continuing with the strategic partnership that gave so much benefits to us and for us to them over the years. We continue that strategic partnership, as Daniel said, very important to us. We will not be owned by the same investors, but we will continue as fellow travelers in our journey. We respect and love the people of PeoplePlus , and they will be supporting us too. Onto the current trading and outlook.
Look, it's very, very simple. The current market conditions, as I alluded to in the top end of the presentation, are challenging. There's no doubt about it. That has been added to over the months, particularly with tariffs, but also mainly in the U.K. with the National Insurance increases. Our focus is laser sharp on the blue-collar recruitment area, where we are providing essential workers in a tight labor market to customers that have large scale and are dependent on those essential workers to move their goods and services around the country. That includes driving, of course, HGV driving, and a host of other roles and labor. We exceeded expectations last year. The momentum was strong towards the end of the year. That continues into the first quarter. The first quarter has been in line and slightly ahead in many areas of budget.
We feel confident about the year ahead. The scale and reach is what's going to help us face these headwinds. The investment of PeoplePlus is really important for our investors who recognize that possibly the business was non-core and have supported our transaction. Indeed, the balance sheet then benefits. Also, we've expanded our cash resources to now leverage and focus into the core market of recruitment. We do have ongoing demand for blue-collar, but we also have demand for our technical expertise in our Omega brands, in our Datum brand, our RPO brand. There is ongoing demand. We've seen some recovery in demand in those businesses. Very, very early green shoots, but we've seen some recovery in that in this year.
Finally, just to restate it for the record, the board is confident that trading will remain in line with expectations for the full year, 2025. Our strategy is obviously to leverage our pure- play recruitment status with all of our customers and indeed our candidates as well in a tight labor market. With that, happy to answer any questions. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being with us. We're available for a few minutes to answer questions.
Albert, Daniel, thank you very much for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q&A tab situated on the top right-hand corner of your screen. Just while the company takes a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I'd like to remind you that the recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A, can be accessed by our investor dashboard. Daniel, could I please ask you to read out the questions and give responses where appropriate to do so? I'll pick up from you at the end.
Great. Thank you very much. The first question is a question regarding the share price over the last six months and what the strategy for the business going forward is in the context of that. Albert?
Yeah, thank you, Daniel. First of all, the share price has been obviously extremely strong relative to the sector. I think in the year to date, this year in 2025, we're well ahead of the sector. For the full year, we're well ahead of the sector on almost any measure. The share price has been relatively strong. That reflects our focus on growth, and that is our primary focus is growth. Of course, that growth gives us wonderful choices like dividends or share buybacks, what type of returns. The board has consulted widely with all of its shareholders, and we remain persuaded that share buybacks at this stage of the economic cycle is the most valuable way to reward shareholders. I mean, it provides liquidity for those who don't want to hold the shares, and it provides a reducing equity pool for those that do hold the shares.
By definition, their ownership percentages increases. I'm a big fan of share buybacks. We're buying our EBITDA back at ridiculously low levels at these times in the market. Of course, with interest rates high, that means your dividend % payout and return would be competing against a relatively risk-free deposit, fixed deposit or gilt, which would be challenging. If it is the other way around and market prices were high and valuations elevated and interest rates very low, you might take a different view. At this stage, we're persuaded that this is the best way to grow the value for shareholders, and we've focused on that.
Thank you, Albert. Next question is regarding the proportionality of our automotive exposure. Do we have any contracts expiring in the next year? How do we see our automotive customers weathering the current hazards? Before I hand over to Albert to just discuss the automotive sector in general, I would say the proportionality is relatively small. Our majority exposure is to food, logistics, etc. I'm not going to divulge a specific percentage, but relatively small. Albert, over to you to discuss.
Yes. I mean, we're also exposed to other sectors. Being the market leader, you'd expect that. Aviation is another one, which has been very strong in the last 12 months, and we've seen very, very satisfactory growth there. In automotive, we announced a couple of years ago that we had secured the BMW contract, which includes Rolls-Royce in Goodwood and also the Mini in Cowley, Oxford, the Mini production facilities there, and also engines in West Midlands. We are also supporting Land Rover and Jaguar. We are conscious of the automotive sector and its challenges. Our view is that that sector has been really affected by the transition to electric. There has been a bit of a slowdown, and you would have read it in the papers, I'm sure, how that's customers buying and various challenges and headwinds in the slowdown.
I mean, the tariffs obviously would cause that sector to have a rethink or to have some consternation. We haven't, at this point, received any news that they would be negative in that sense. I mean, I think these businesses have been around for over 100 years, and they'll be able to work it out. I'm sure I've got full confidence in them to do that. There'll always be headwinds. In life now, that's normal. We've always got to just be positive and work out what the solution is.
Thank you, Albert. Next question is, with PeoplePlus now divested, how do you expect the pure play recruitment platform strategy to impact operating margins and capital efficiency going forward? Again, I'm just going to make a comment before I maybe just hand over to Albert as well. From an operating margin perspective, PeoplePlus was a higher gross profit margin business. Actually, from a capital efficiency perspective, PeoplePlus had a number of properties throughout the U.K. Obviously, we do not have those anymore. We operate largely our recruitment businesses on site. We have some branches as well and a couple of head offices. I see that as a very efficient way. Albert and I were just talking this morning about the efficiency of that model. We are very pleased with the basis for going forward from an operating margin and efficiency perspective.
I don't know if you had anything to add to that.
Yeah. I mean, both businesses, PeoplePlus and recruitment, have an element of mobilization and upfront investment when they secure large contracts. In that respect, very similar. The recruitment business, as they grow, they tend to absorb capital. You have to really watch your debtor days, your risk on outstanding debtors. Those are the sorts of things that you're focused on with PeoplePlus . 90%+ of their revenues are from government. You tend to sort of, your risk on recovery of outstanding debtors might be low or remote, but you have upfront mobilization costs in terms of CapEx and offices, as Daniel's just said. Slightly different models, but broadly similar in the way they pan out. The only thing I would say is that in terms of efficiency, recruitment can be extremely efficient if you are generating strong trading cash flows.
As they grow, they spin off cash. Yes, there's a portion to be invested in the working capital, but we've found over the years that we can do that. Banks, particularly the banks that we've partnered with, are very happy provided we are hitting their metrics and their KPIs to advance debtor financing on those recruitment activities. They're imminently financeable. Recruitment businesses, if you get them right, can be very rewarding. They can also go wrong very quickly if you don't understand what you're doing. Essentially, it's a cash-generative business. It doesn't have high capital investment requirements. It's a business that requires a light touch, understanding people, and ultimately servicing your customers because the barriers to entry are quite low. It's about excellence in delivery.
Thank you, Albert. Next question was about buybacks and EBT purchases where we might consider reinstating dividends. I think Albert, you've already covered that in your answer to the first question. Next question, a multi-part question, which I think Albert will take the first one. Please share with us comments that customers are saying about tariffs. Second part, EBIT increase that can be expected from the Garda contract in Ireland in 2025 and the investment we made based on the investment made in FY24. Thirdly, a little bit more about the opportunity to invest in organic growth. Maybe Albert, you'll take the tariffs and organic growth question, and I'll take the.
Yeah. I'm not an expert in tariffs, so I won't go into detail there. What I will say is that we know that BMW have significant operations in the US where they build many of their vehicles, particularly their SUVs, and they export them all over the world. They are present in almost every country. In the sense that tariffs are a new challenge for them, I'm sure, and we don't have any, we don't sort of have any indication that they're panicking or that they feel that this is going to affect the business. They are well ahead in terms of their electric vehicle offering, very, very attractive offering. They are weathering that transition. You have only got to look at the mini range to see how that is succeeding.
The headlines are the headlines, but in our experience, our customers know how to manage their businesses in headwinds. We are the largest supplier to the Scottish whiskey and drinks industry in Scotland. These sort of niche products, high-value products, they tend to be price inelastic. I will say the same for the high-end automotive sector. For example, BMW own Rolls-Royce, which is pretty price inelastic for the types of consumers and customers that they are serving. Not to say that price is irrelevant, but they are at the very top end of the price and value scale. Price can be quite inelastic in terms of demand. We have some confidence there. I mean, it's very interesting that in Ireland now, the tariffs exceed for importing into the U.S., those that are in the mainland U.K.
There might be sort of nearshoring opportunities and some solutions that both countries, both Ireland and the U.K., could exploit in terms of making sure that they are getting the best value in terms of tariffs. There is lots to think and talk about, but I'm not an expert. All I can say is that our customers are keeping calm and carrying on. The main thing is to deliver great products and great services.
Thank you, Albert. Just to cover off the question in there around the Garda contract and the investment we put in in FY 2024 and the expected return in FY 2025. There are two ways to look at this. From a cash perspective, we did put the investments in in FY 2024, and then we will see numbers of hundreds of thousands of GBP of benefit of that in FY 2025. From a P&L perspective, we did capitalize some of that investment on the balance sheet. That will be coming through in amortization in FY 2025. Therefore, there will not be as much of that incremental benefit from a P&L perspective as we will see in cash. There will be absolutely numbers of hundreds of thousands of GBP of cash delivery from the Garda contract in FY 2025 based on that investment in FY 2024.
As we've mentioned throughout FY24, that contract was a bit delayed in its mobilization. Therefore, that's why we'll see the real floating in cash in FY25. Moving on to the next question, do we anticipate any major CapEx or investment requirements in the coming year? Just to highlight one item, very responsibly, we invested some CapEx in our payroll and finance systems in 2024, which will continue into the first half of 2025. Beyond that, we don't see any particular capital investment needed. Very important, as you've seen over the last couple of years, we've seen significant growth, organic growth in our recruitment business, specifically in GB.
We want to make sure that from a scale perspective, a cyber control perspective, that our systems are absolutely tip-top and ready to deliver the next stage of our growth, which, as Albert and I hopefully have communicated today, notwithstanding the challenging wider economic environment, we believe that we can deliver for the group, for its shareholders, and all other stakeholders. Hopefully, we should see the fruits of that investment over the coming years. Albert, just maybe like to just summarize and finish off.
Yes. Thank you for those questions, everybody. Really made us think, put us on our toes there. Hopefully, you've got the gist of the message and the detail and the results. As I said, if I can restate some of the positives, we're a pure play, blue-collar, and white-collar recruitment business now. In my view, actually, having a global business with small operations in many countries across the world will pose quite a challenge in the years to come. What I've always believed in is having market share as much as you can, acquiring or being the market leader in your market and having the advantages of scale and reach. I think subscale operations are going to be challenging to manage and to be profitable, particularly with the current politics and geopolitical risk.
Therefore, I'm delighted that we've got this really strong footprint in the U.K. and the island of Ireland, supporting and cross-fertilizing all of the areas of the business and providing that reach and that scale for customers, which is really world-beating and world-class. We're a highly cash-generative business. We'll continue to buy our shares in the market at these really good low-level value levels. We will return cash to shareholders where appropriate. Bright outlook for us. We're very confident about our results for the next 12 months. They're in line with expectations currently. The first quarter has been slightly better than budget, in line with our management's expectations. We're set fair. We're going to have our AGM in a few weeks, and we might be updating the market at that point. We'll see if there's anything that we can usefully say.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Albert, Daniel, thank you for updating investors today. Now, please ask investors not to close the session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, and I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of Staffline Group PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation.