Recruiter Norman Broadbent seeks takeover despite ‘extremely difficult’ conditions

Recruitment firm Norman Broadbent struggled with “extremely challenging” market conditions in the first half of the year but is still looking for acquisition opportunities.

Net fee income for the first half of the year is expected to be £4.5m, down 14% on last year but up 36% on the previous year.

The biggest contributor to the fee decline was a reduction in searches for temporary management positions, which fell 47 per cent year-on-year. Searches for management positions fell four per cent year-on-year.

Norman Broadbent said the number of search orders it won was up five per cent on last year, but the value of the order fee was down nine per cent, reflecting “industry-wide trends”.

Underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) are expected to be between 100,000 and 150,000 pounds, compared with 270,000 pounds last year, it said in a statement.

The company’s shares fell more than five percent in early trading.

Kevin David, the company’s CEO, said: “Growth is rarely linear from quarter to quarter, but there is no doubt that, like the entire executive search industry, we are coping with extremely challenging market conditions.”

“However, this does not affect the confidence we have in our potential customers. Therefore, while we were conscious of the costs in the first half of 2024, we continued to invest, grow and improve our workforce to ensure that the Company is well-positioned to capitalize on the recovery when it comes,” he continued.

David said the company was “actively pursuing synergistic acquisition opportunities” and was confident it would achieve Norma Broadbent’s medium-term goals.

“Given high levels of employee retention, returning overall economic confidence, seemingly controlled inflation and a general expectation of improving market conditions in the second half of 2024, we continue to be confident in our ability to achieve our £1.25m EBITDA target by 2025,” he said.