Good afternoon and welcome to the Staffline Group plc H1 Results Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted any time via the Q&A tab situated in the right-hand corner of your screen. Simply type in your question and press Send. Company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, the company review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to Daniel Quint, CFO, and Albert Ellis, CEO. Good afternoon.
Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to update you on the Staffline progress at the halfway point in our financial year to December 31, 2022. You have, as usual, myself, Albert Ellis, as the CEO, and of course, my colleague Daniel Quint, the CFO. Moving on to the highlights, which you might have read already, so I won't go into too much detail, but just bringing out the point that our trading is in line with the expectations. We've had some real highlights around the permanent recruitment piece where demand has been very robust. You're aware of the job vacancy data. It's all at record levels. We've also seen excellent performance in Ireland, places like Ireland, Republic of Ireland, and Datum, our managed service business.
Now, despite revenue being affected by lower working hours in the blue-collar sector, really, the true measure of a recruitment business is its gross profit. That is the measure of revenue for recruitment, and that's been up in the period. Statistically, the proportion of permanent recruitment has really exceeded our expectations. We had a target of 10% permanent recruitment versus 90% temp, but we didn't expect to really be achieving that this early on in the year. I'll talk more about the success of our new contracts, BMW and the contract we announced this morning with PeoplePlus, which is very exciting later on in the presentation. Most importantly, these results really reflect our ambition to grow the business, so we'll go into some detail about why we've made the investment and how that's affected the results.
Daniel, you'll take us through the financials now. Over to you.
Thank you very much, Albert. Really great to be able to present to you this afternoon, and good afternoon to all of you. I'm gonna run through the key financials now for the six months to June. As you would have seen, revenue is marginally down as a result of lower hours in the blue-collar sector. Additionally, as a result of very strong comparative last year, you'll remember that last year we were still in lockdown, and that did benefit our blue-collar business. Therefore, this year's had some strong comparatives last year with hours being slightly down. Additionally, as we've said quite openly before, we exited, strategically exited from one of our key contracts, which is a very low margin high working capital-intensive contract.
We did that strategically, which has taken approximately GBP 10 million out of the revenue. You can see the benefit of having done that by seeing gross profit grow both in pounds and in percentage. You'll see that the gross profit moved from GBP 39 million to GBP 39.9 million. The real benefit that we can see, having moved away from those low margin contracts is that the gross margin, gross profit percent has increased from 8.7% to 9.1%. Additionally, another reason for that is that we've actually increased, as Albert referred to, our permanent recruitment activity.
We've actually increased that from GBP 1.5 million gross profit to GBP 3.2 million, more than doubling it in the half compared to last year, which was a strategic position we took at the end of 2020 and has started to grow through 2021 and now really benefiting the group in the beginning of 2022. As you look through to underlying operating profit, you'll see a decrease year-on-year, and that is because we are investing for the future. We've invested approximately GBP 1 million in headcount, adding heads in key areas which Albert will come onto later. We'll see the benefits of that coming through in the second half of 2022 as well as through into 2023.
Additionally, another holdback in the first half was the additional Statutory Sick Pay costs of the Omicron variant of COVID. You'll recall, although we're, you know, really very much past COVID now, but it was only back in December, January, February, March time that we had Omicron with us, with many of us getting sick, and that did add GBP 0.3 million to the cost line. Another reason why year-over-year we're slightly behind, but of course, that having gone now means that that will not be an occurrence in H2 2022. Additionally, we will be recognizing for the first time revenues and profits, additional revenues and profits regarding our Restart contract, the employability contract in H2. So that is another reason why the operating profit was a little restrained in H1.
Now just to talk a little bit more about the margins, the gross profit margins across the group, specifically by division. Just going from left to right, our Recruitment GB division has increased gross profit margin from 6.8% to 7.1%, and that as a result of two main reasons. Firstly, the increase in permanent recruitment activity, which I've already mentioned. Secondly, the COVID lockdown last year benefited the supermarkets, which are traditionally lower margin contracts, and therefore, the change in revenue mix has meant that we've naturally increased our margins as we've seen the reopening of new or old sectors such as aviation and automotive. We've had some real great success in H1 2022 on that, hence why the margin has grown.
In Recruitment Ireland, they've had success across the board, both in their holding their margin in their blue-collar environment, but very, very importantly in permanent recruitment and white-collar recruitment, really driving up their margin to see a 1.2 percentage point increase, in their division. In PeoplePlus, through further optimization and efficiency in how we're delivering our contracts, we've seen gross profit grow by over 1% to 24.3%. This of course aggregates to the group having gone through that 9% barrier, increasing gross profit percentage from 8.7% to 9.1%. A real achievement from the group, especially as to where the group was a couple of years ago, something we are extremely pleased about.
Now, moving on to some further financials, another sign of the strong and improving balance sheet and improving trading cash flows and maintained working capital management is a sign of reduced interest costs. You can see that in these finance costs here, where we've reduced interest costs from GBP 1.4 million to GBP 1 million. As I said, really, showing the resilience of the balance sheet, but importantly, the trading cash flow and tight working capital management. That cash flow is illustrated by the EBITDA generation of GBP 7.1 million in the half. Additionally, we've seen a positive underlying move in net debt.
Just to explain that to you on this slide, the net debt in the prior year, I've added the VAT, deferred VAT from COVID onto debt at the half point last year to illustrate to you, because we paid all of that back between July 2021 and January 2022. Therefore, this graph here, the GBP 24.4 million net debt for last year, moving positively to GBP 13.9 million for this year, is an illustration of the underlying improvements of approximately GBP 10.5 million in the net debt position year-over-year once you exclude that repayment of COVID VAT. Finally, just to comment on our perspective on our position now compared to how we projected we would be at the equity raise last year.
You can see in the bottom right-hand side of the slide, we're approximately GBP 20 million-GBP 25 million better, and that's a result of a really strong performance by the business, both from a trading perspective and a controls, cash flow controls perspective. A bit more detail on the net debt bridge here. This is the bridge between thirtieth of June 2021 and thirtieth of June 2022. You'll see the two main movements on this waterfall bridge are firstly, in the green column, a really positive EBITDA generation over the full twelve-month period which this graph looks at. So GBP 15.8 million of EBITDA cash generated. Then also the major swing outwards of the deferred COVID VAT, the GBP 40.6 million, illustrating to you the GBP 30 million increase in net debt.
When you take into consideration the GBP 40 million outflow in COVID deferred VAT repayment, that actually illustrates an underlying GBP 10 million improvement in the net debt position. Next to come on to some signals of how the company's balance sheet, its financing, and its security stands as we are today, or as we were on the thirtieth of June. Firstly, looking at the significant headroom that we have in our facilities, GBP 46.4 million at the thirtieth of June. A very, very healthy position to be in. Number two, covenants. We have two main covenants where we are performing excellently against. We have leverage against EBITDA of 0.5 times. The cap on covenant is 3 times, and so 0.5 is an excellent position to be in.
Interest cover, where our minimum covenant position is 2.25, and we're actually achieving 7 times. Finally, on financial security. From an interest rate perspective, obviously very sensitive to the movements in interest rates over the last number of months and what is projected to happen in coming months. Being sensitive to that, in the last quarter of last year, we purchased an interest rate cap, and that hedges approximately two-thirds of all our interest rate exposure. Anything over 1% of the cap is at 1%, and therefore anything over that 1% of SONIA we are hedged against, and we will see no impact.
I think in consideration of the financial environment we're in, that's a really strong position, both currently on the balance sheet as illustrated by the headroom and the covenant positions, but also futuristically looking at the interest rate cap that we have in place. Finally from me, before I hand back to Albert, just to highlight a few items that will step-change increased profit in H2, and move it from H1. The first item is the one-off item of Omicron that I've already spoken about. We had a GBP 300,000 increase in statutory sick pay costs as a result of the Omicron variant in H1. With COVID cases now actually reducing again in the last few weeks, and if there are no further variants, we will not see a repeat of those costs in H2.
Number two, BMW, the new contract we announced in March was actually only implemented on the first of May, and that was a little bit of a ramp up to the half year. We've actually not had major trading then in the first half of the year. We have a full six months of trading in the second half, as well as the implementation costs that we incurred in H1 not reoccurring again. A really strong position for H2 regarding the BMW contract. Thirdly, Restart. Since we implemented this contract on the first of July 2021, we have been cautious in our accounting and not recognized any profit. We will most likely be doing so in the second half of this year, approximately half a million pounds. Also our standard H2 seasonal peak uplift.
This is traditionally Staffline's most busy time of the year, especially in the peak season and the preparation for peak from late September through October leading up to Christmas and New Year's. We will see our traditional uplift, and that will potentially be enhanced by the FIFA World Cup coming in November in Qatar, hopefully building on the success of the Lionesses that we had on Sunday. We should see some general and positive sentiment in the economy as a result of that in Q4.
Finally, we're starting to see some signs of organic market share growth that we're achieving, especially as a result of our focus over the last 2.5 years since we've turned around the business, our focus on strong governance and controls in processes and working practices that we see as very important for this group. We see early signs of that coming to fruition, and we hope to see more in the second half. With that, I will hand over to Albert to take you through the operational review.
Thank you, Daniel. Those are some fantastic points that you've made there, Daniel. I mean, it's tremendous to be the CEO of a business where your finance director's got such a grip of the balance sheet. I mean, to have taken that interest rate hedge when you did, Daniel, was a tremendous decision, well before interest rates were predicted to rise as much as they have. We're well protected, and it just goes to the strength of the company in terms of these uncertain times. Talking about uncertain times, the next slide just gives you our view of the macro. While the big macro trends are clear, we've listed some of them here. Consumer demand affecting retail, online distribution. You know, that's a little bit down if you look across the group, across the markets.
Premium brands, they're all being affected by the so-called cost of living crisis. What we do is we look at the positives for us, and we're focused on scale. Many of our customers are in the food and distribution sectors, which are more resilient, and we're using our scale and our reach to leverage that market and gain market share. Now, as you know, customers are battling inflation and rising costs, but, you know, this has enabled us to have deep conversations with them, to collaborate with them and help them understand their productivity benefits that they can gain, and not only deal with the rising costs, but also how to get the best out of the workers and attract the best workers to work in their businesses and organizations.
We have grown much closer to our customers in the last three or four months. It's obvious 'cause if you've read the news recently, you'll know aviation makes the headlines sometimes for all the wrong reasons, the queues and the frustrations. What it is tremendous demand that's come back after COVID. We think that aviation and automotive, which has been affected by supply chain problems, both key sectors for Staffline before the pandemic, are going to ease. Those problems will ease, and we think that we predict that our own numbers will improve in those sectors, and those are higher margin sectors. You know, the labor shortage, you know, is not going away, not with 1.3 million job vacancies still in the market.
We also think that young people will come back into the labor market. Workers that have been out of the labor market for the last 2 years, we think they're starting to come back in. We're also starting to see people perhaps taking second jobs, doing shifts and overtime to supplement their core income. With a buoyant jobs market, there is, you know, the other side of the coin, which is the fact that we don't see the demand for skills and training because if people can get jobs, they don't present for skills and training. Overall, it's macro uncertainty, but there's plenty of opportunity for Staffline within that. Now, moving on to GB.
Daniel has given a tremendous analysis and account of this business, but I wanted to just specifically point out how impressive the gross profit lift of 2.5% is given, you know, the headwinds with Omicron and in the beginning of the year. Gross profit is our absolute measure of revenue, so I'm delighted to see the increase over 2021. Look, operating profit had been significantly impacted by our strategic decision last year to grow the business organically, and the only way we could do that was to invest in headcount.
This GBP +1 million investment in fee earners in the permanent fee income area, expanding our branch network, but also in fulfillment and implementation people to make sure that the BMW contract was implemented smoothly, clearly held back the operating profit in the short term, but, you know, I'm fully confident that this investment will provide returns, not only in the short to medium term, but also, more importantly, in the longer term. The next slide sets out why we're investing in growth in this way. You can see you've got all of our big customers there, and you can see our contract to supply BMW, which we announced only a number of months ago, 1,800 workers at their MINI site in Cowley, Oxford, and their Rolls-Royce site in the South of England. This implementation was complex.
We invested to ensure the process was successful. However, the start of the contract was right towards the end of the first half, so we look forward to a full six months of revenues and profits in H2 2022. Now, VINCI Construction, a large French construction company with large operations in the UK, has also exceeded our expectations. We announced a five-year extension to this customer, and their critical project is the SO pipeline, the Southampton to London pipeline. We announced the five-year extension in March. We're delighted with the progress so far, and we're seeing more work coming our way after that project is finished. We're also seeing organic growth momentum in existing customers.
Companies like Sainsbury's and like Samworth Brothers. Both are in the food and distribution markets, production markets, are also looking to leverage their own market share, and they also consolidating their supply chains. There's a definite flight to quality that's occurring. We're seeing that shift in supply chain dynamics, and customers want to make sure that their supply chain has resilient and professional and transparent businesses like Staffline in it. Finally, our white-collar Omega business. It's a, you know, technical engineering specialist. You know, it's seeing unprecedented inquiries from the defense sector and the related supply chain in that sector. You know, once again, showing that the jobs market is in good shape. It's in rude health. Now on to the business in Ireland. These are excellent results.
You know, you can't argue with the financials there, the gross profit and the operating profit both moving and increasing in double-digit terms. Now, there is some flattery from weaker comparators because Ireland, as you'll remember if you saw us last year this time, experienced a harsher and a longer COVID lockdown, so they were later out of lockdown, and therefore their acceleration in the second half was the cause of these fantastic results in the first half, and that momentum continues into the second half. Now, while onsite and food volumes have been under pressure at blue-collar, branch performances have been strong. We opened two branches last year, Dundalk and Galway.
They're contributing to the overall performance of the business, but we've also set up another branch opening for September this year in Limerick. We're looking forward to that. We've hired the team and, you know, this is a little bit longer than we expected. We wanted to do this in the first half, but recruiting is so tough at the moment, so we're doing that in September. Now, the business has benefited from a pivot to white collar. In Ireland, there's been a strategic decision to pivot more to white collar recruitment. It's also a business that benefits from the resilience and the stability of its large public sector base. You may remember that in particular Northern Ireland, a large proportion is in the public sector.
The business also has an historic control of its cost base, you know, very high conversions. I would even say that 24% conversion is slightly too hot. We should be investing more into fee earners so we can get more growth in the future. Of course, as I've said, in September, we plan to open our next branch in Limerick, and we've got plans for more branches opening in the Republic of Ireland after that. Now on to PeoplePlus. This business was really the standout performance last year, so it's unsurprising that this year the super strong comparators have left them facing very, very strong comparators. Look, H1 also included results last year from a probation contract with the Ministry of Justice.
They brought this in-house and didn't re-tender, so that is also increasing the first half of last year. Notwithstanding that, the underlying business has presented modest growth in the first half. Remember, as Daniel said, we haven't attributed any profit to the Restart contract yet. One of the points that I just wanted to deal with was skills. The Skills and Training division, which has historically been a big driver of profit, has been really impacted by the strong jobs market. We've had customers asking us to train new candidates into new jobs, and it's really challenging to persuade candidates to present themselves for training for an extended period of time when they have the opportunity to get into work very quickly and to earn money.
You know that you would expect that. That's just the yin and yang between a very strong jobs market and the skills and training market. Finally, I'm really encouraged with the pipeline, in particular, the contract win that we announced this morning with the Ministry of Justice. Of course, it's subject to contract, et cetera. It's another sign of confidence that we have in the business and that the Ministry has in the business. Now, we saw restart one last year, and with the unemployment numbers not being as bad as the government predicted, the Department for Work and Pensions have reset the pricing framework, and that, you know, began in earnest in July. For the second six months of this year, we now have certainty around our pricing.
This underpins the PeoplePlus forecasts and prospects for the year, but crucially, it gives us the confidence to say that we'll be recognizing profits, albeit we're almost 25%-30% into the contract. This concludes the detailed update on the numbers and the business. Now we're going to go directly to the outlook. Every outlook right now is subject to changes in macroeconomic conditions and headwinds, so I won't go through that. The board expects trading to be in line with expectations this year. We've got a number of strong reasons which we've set out. Five reasons. BMW contract, that's a GBP 60 million-GBP 70 million contract. We've had a successful mobilization and implementation, and the group will enjoy a full six months.
In the first half, very little from that contract. That's the first point. Probably the biggest point. Secondly, Restart. We've not recognized any profit, albeit we've been working on the Restart contract since July last year. By the end of this year, we'll be 18 months into a four-year contract, and we'll be in a position now that we have the pricing framework reset, and that certainty, we'll be in a position to recognize profits. Thirdly, we're currently seeing organic growth from our large customers as we sense, and I said this in the earlier slides, this flight to quality.
The market share has increased in at least two of our top five customers that we know of markedly, and we believe it's based on the strengths of the group, our strong balance sheet, our broad coverage, our geographical spread, our portfolio of services, and the fact that we're a transparent and listed company, which very much plays to the strengths of that sector. Much publicized is the aviation, the sort of bounce back in aviation. The supply chain problems in automotive, hopefully, we see that easing somewhat. We have seen our own numbers in aviation and manufacturing tick up nicely. There are lots of barriers to ramping up very fast.
As you know, we can provide the staff, but they've gotta be DBS checked, they've gotta be security cleared, and indeed, the ground clearing agents who we're hiring for have to bring them on board and train them. There is a delay to what you see in the news in terms of point demand and the numbers, but it's only temporary, and we think that'll ease towards Christmas. Finally, we believe the normal seasonality, which traditionally favored the business pre-COVID, will return this year. Companies will start using temporary and flexible work more now that they've seen what's happening in the macro world. They will take precautions. I think that permanent hiring might be steady, but we'll see an increase in temp. That's really important.
Of course, we haven't budgeted for this, but there is the prospect of a boost from the FIFA World Cup that kicks in sort of the back end of the year and hopefully supercharges the Christmas that we'll have. I think people will focus on entertaining at home. That'll be a catalyst for food and drinks growth in the supermarkets, which we'll be prepared to do and support in the run-up to Christmas. That concludes this part of the presentation at least. Thank you for your time and attention so far. Daniel and I are now available for questions. Thank you once again.
Fantastic. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you for the presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions using the Q&A tab situated in the right-hand corner. Just click Q&A, scroll to the bottom, type your question, and press send. Just while the team take a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I'd like to remind you the recording of the presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A can be accessed via your investor dashboard. Daniel, Albert, we did receive one pre-submitted question, so if I may, I'll just read that out for you, ahead of those we receive during the meeting. It reads as follows: Will the change in your role that now allows recruiters to provide staffing to replace temporary striking workers provide any opportunities for you in the short term?
Well, look, we're a believer in flexible markets and temporary labor is all about flexible markets for our customers, and our customers are our number one priority. Also, you know, demand is very variable in the market and people who are in temporary contracts are always looking to earn more with the cost of living crisis. Earnings is the number one. That's the number one request and requirement that we get when we survey our workers. They want steady and increased earnings. We're a big believer in flexible markets.
As to the ideology and some of the sort of debate around this point, we'll stay out of that, the politics of it, but certainly, you know, we're a big supporter and obviously a big, well, committed to the flexibility of labor markets.
Fantastic. Thank you very much indeed. As you can see, if you wouldn't mind just clicking on that Q&A tab, we have had a number of questions submitted throughout today's presentation. If I may just ask you to read out the question where appropriate to do so and give your response, that'd be fantastic, and I'll pick up from you at the end.
Okay. David, you've asked the question, will directors back up their confidence for purchasing any Staffline shares? Well, firstly, Daniel and I have, you know, in the last 12 months since the equity raise made, we've acquired two tranches of shares. One was in the equity raise, and then just recently, we committed part of our incentives to buying shares. You know, we've got well over in the hundreds of thousands each in terms of, stock that we're holding in Staffline, and we won't stop there. That's as far as we're concerned. One of the more interesting questions might be, who else is buying the shares? Both Henry Spain and HRnetGroup have bought shares, in the last quarter. I think that's also another positive for the group.
Good. Thank you, Albert. Next question is from Adrian. What is the anticipated margin for the BMW contract? Well, probably not the best thing to present margins in a public forum, but what I will say is that the margin is a very sensible margin and maintains the group's position in terms of the margin journey we've been taking over the last 6 months and 18 months since we turned around the business. I would also say that the attraction of a BMW contract allows us to have good or better access to their supply chain. Those are the suppliers that supply into BMW, which are obviously small suppliers and will allow us to g ain extra work activity through them, which would also provide, I would say some robust margins, in that technical engineering space.
Hopefully that broadly answers that question. Coming on to the next question, regarding, the question says, "I understand there's GBP 39 million worth of supplier finance in addition to the debt shown. Please, could you go into the nature of this a little, whether it offers good value, and whether you intend to retain it in the medium term?" I can. You'll see that we've got GBP 39 million supplier finance. That's broadly the same amount that we had last year.
In terms of the question as to whether it offers good value, I would say it very much does offer good value because one of its key characteristics is that the margin cost of that funding is based off the credit rating of the particular customer. The customers who are engaged or involved in that supplier financing relationship are very, very significant large ones, and their credit rating means that the cost of that funding is very low. I would say, you know, a half lower than our average cost of our funding at Staffline. That is why it is very good value for money, and why we will, as the question asked, we do intend to retain it into the medium term. Of course, we keep a very active watch on the nature of the funding.
Yeah, it does serve us well, and we'll be keeping it going forward. Next question from Chris, which I'll read out. "You both own, as per your corporate website, three times as many nil-cost option shares as formal company issue shares. You seem excited about the future for the business, and the share is down 40% over the last year. Time for you to buy more shares in the market?" I think, Albert, you've already answered that question, if that's okay. Then a question here from Gary, who asks, "Do you foresee an increase in M&A activity in the next 12-18 months in the staffing sector?" Albert, I will hand over to you to respond to that.
Yes, I think you will see. I mean, we get a lot of teaser memoranda from the brokers in the market. There appears to be a number of businesses that are up for sale at the moment. You typically get owners that have been through COVID, that are benefiting from the strong jobs market, who this is private owners who are now looking for an exit. You know, in my view, the only way to real value in recruitment is an organic path, and that is the path we've chosen. We wanna keep our cash flow to fund organic growth. We've got tremendous opportunity. We don't need to buy businesses to do that. That's our strategically chosen path.
Of course, it's that pathway that requires us to invest in headcount. This is a really great question to tee off that investment, which is, if you buy a business, the accounting rules say you can put the cost of that on the balance sheet, and the profits in the income statements. If you invest for organic growth, you're required to put the investment in the P&L, and it hurts. It's the same cash flows. Don't be too fooled by a big buy and build strategy. Organic growth has definitely proven over the years to have been more to yield more returns for the owners. That's our preference. Obviously, you know, different companies have different policies.
We will see an increase in M&A, and I think that for the reasons I mentioned, but also, corporates are always on the lookout for niches and for supplementing their own businesses. You know, accelerating growth in areas that they're not present.
Thank you, Albert. I think that actually concludes all questions.
Fantastic.
Now, on to you, Jake.
Thank you very much indeed, Daniel and Albert, for covering all those questions. Of course, any further questions that do come through today, the company will be able to review those questions. We'll publish responses where appropriate to do so on the InvestorMeetCompany platform. Albert, perhaps before redirecting investors to give you their feedback, which is particularly important to you and the team, may I just ask you for a few closing comments, please?
Yes, sure. Thank you for that. Just in summary, we've had a solid start to the year. We've made an investment for the future. We're seeing increases in the critical measure of gross profit. As we said in our strategy last year, we're focusing on margin. We're focusing on gross margin. We have made some tremendous wins, both in PeoplePlus with restart in the Ministry of Justice. We've also expanded our new business portfolio in our blue-collar sector. We're seeing organic growth in our existing customers, and we're seeing sectors opening up now that have been closed for over two years, which is really exciting. We're seeing a more normal shape to the year now in terms of demand and peaks and troughs. I'm very excited for the future.
Daniel and I are committed to the business. We will buy shares as and when we can, and we feel very optimistic that in the second half, we're going to see all that incremental revenues and profits which we've brought out in our slides. Thank you for that.
Daniel and Albert, thank you again for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close the session, as you'll be automatically redirected to provide your feedback, so all the 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. That concludes today's session. Good afternoon to you all.