Derby-headquartered RTC Group, the AIM listed recruitment business, remains optimistic for the future after “an extremely challenging year” saw revenue and pre-tax profit decline.
According to audited results for the year ended 31 December 2021, group revenue sat at £77.7m, dipping from £81.4m in 2020.
Meanwhile the business posted a profit before tax of £114,000, down from £870,000 in 2020.
Commenting on the results, Andy Pendlebury, CEO, said: “RTC Group, like many other companies, had an extremely challenging year in 2021.
“The COVID pandemic continued to significantly impact client demand across many markets and where requirements for contract labour remained strong this was accompanied by higher operational costs to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our workforce; candidate reluctance to change employers/careers given these turbulent times and workers self-isolating increased both direct and indirect costs as programme and project continuity was heavily disrupted.
“In addition, the sudden and immediate demobilisation from Afghanistan due to the complete withdrawal in August of all American, United Kingdom and NATO troops curtailed a large contribution of revenue from our international business. Further, the implementation of changes to IR 35 in the private sector, which finally became legislation in April 2021, heavily impacted our white-collar contracting community.
“However, despite the untimely combination and cumulative effect of all these events, the majority of which were outside of the control of the Group, we still managed to trade, albeit marginally, in positive territory. Our balance sheet remains robust and free from long term debt or the effects of dilution, a fate which befell many shareholders of other traded recruitment businesses over the past couple of years, who raised equity at sub-optimal values in order to survive, and through the Board’s successful share option cancellation programme.
“Although for many reasons we are all naturally very disappointed with the way the year played out for us, and also mindful of the fact that there are still many geo-political events and micro-economic challenges threatening the domestic and international landscape, we believe our positioning across a broad range of markets, sectors and industries, give us every reason to be optimistic about our ability to deliver long term sustainable value to all our stakeholders.”
