Nash bucks recruitment woe with revenue jump
SPECIALIST recruiter Harvey Nash reported a surprise increase in revenues from its financial services business yesterday, boosting the firm to an overall 26 per cent revenue rise for 2011.
Total turnover at the firm, which focuses on technology and IT services roles, rose to £533m from £422m last year, lifting operating profits by 41 per cent to £9m.
Chief executive Albert Ellis put the firm’s success – particularly in the struggling financial services sector – down to its new City offices, which it opened last year having traditionally operated from a West End base.
“Our proximity has allowed growth despite banks’ margins being increasingly under pressure,” Ellis told City A.M. But he admitted the hiring that Harvey Nash was seeing was not in the traditional investment banking roles, but in “temporary roles on short-term projects, and continual hiring across regulatory risk and compliance”.
In the year to 31 January, the group won market share across its Nordic businesses and in the UK, leading to a revenue increase of 19 per cent in its domestic market.
In a trading update in February, Harvey Nash cautioned that its expectation for the coming year had been revised as its clients shied away from hiring permanent staff in the face of ongoing Eurozone turmoil.
Ellis said yesterday that he expected markets to remain flat over the next six months, with some companies increasingly squeezed as credit line dry up.
But he was more bullish on the banking sector going into the fourth quarter of this year, expecting a return to growth as concerns over the Eurozone stabilise.
“Though banks are reducing absolute headcount, they’re also reshaping the chape of their workforce,” he said.
“Internet banking and technology are cannibalising branch staff, but as a result more and more firms are investing in technical staff.”
As a result of several European companies relocating their emerging markets practices to Asia, the firm is looking to continue expansion there, with office openings planned in both Hong Kong and Sydney in the coming months.