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- Robert Walters says its annual profit will beat market consensus.
- The recruitment group reports £71.4 million of Q4 net fee income.
- The UK firm declared 4.5 pence per share of interim dividend in October.
In a report on Tuesday, Robert Walters Group (LON: RWA) said that its net fees in the fiscal fourth quarter came in 24% lower on a year over year basis. The company, however, expressed confidence that performance in Asia Pacific – its largest market – showed significant improvement in recent weeks. Robert Walters now expects its full-year profit to come in better than the market consensus.
Robert Walters shares, that you can learn to buy online here, jumped close to 5% in premarket trading on Tuesday and gained another 2.5% on market open. Including the price action, the stock is now trading at 488 pence per share versus a low of 237 pence per share in the last week of March 2020.
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CEO’s comments on the financial update on Tuesday
The CEO of the London-based company commented on the financial update on Tuesday and said:
“It is important to note that the volatile nature of the pandemic means our forward visibility remains limited evidenced by a number of countries recently returning to versions of the lockdown.”
The ongoing COVID-19 crisis that has so far infected more than 3.1 million people in the United Kingdom and caused a little under 82 thousand people wreaked havoc on the British recruiters in 2020 as businesses resorted to freezing new hiring to minimise costs. The rising cases and the advent of the new variant of the flu-like virus is likely to hurt recruiters further in the upcoming weeks.
In separate news from the United Kingdom, the Hut Group said on Tuesday that its performance in 2021 was likely to show resilience as it announced upbeat results for the fiscal fourth quarter on the back of higher demand for beauty products.
Robert Walters reports £71.4 million of net fee income in Q4
Roberts Walters reported £71.4 million of net fee income in the quarter that concluded on 31st December. In comparison, the figure had printed at a higher £94.2 million in the same quarter last year.
The specialist professional recruitment group had resorted to suspending dividend payments earlier in 2020. In October, however, Robert Walters declared 4.5 pence per share of interim dividend.
Robert Walters performed fairly downbeat in the stock market last year with an annual decline of more than 15%. At the time of writing, the 1985-established company has a market cap of £372.86 million and has a price to earnings ratio of 17.06.
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