Hays plc (HAS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Hays' Half Year Results Announcement for the 6 Months ended 31 December 2023 Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] Please note that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker, Mr. Dirk Hahn, CEO of Hays. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning and welcome everyone. I'm Dirk Hahn and I'm very happy to be here with our Finance Director, James Hilton for my first results meeting as Chief Executive. I began my career at Hays over 25 years ago and it has been a fantastic journey laterally running our Germany and EMEA businesses. I'm immensely proud now to be leading over 12,000 expert colleagues worldwide in this great business and I would like to thank all of them for the tremendous support and positive attitude they have shown me. I will begin today on our first half operating performance, which was challenging, and the decisive actions we have already taken, including delivering GBP 30 million in annualized cost savings with more to follow. James will then cover our financial performance and our trading outlook. And before we take your questions, I will then present our focus strategy, which I'm convinced will significantly improve profitability and enable us to take advantage of the many structural growth opportunities available to us. I will also demonstrate how our strategy is underpinned by greater operational execution right across Hays, something I'm deeply passionate about. This combination of increased triggers and our clear strategy will make Hays a far more resilient and profitable business. Despite today's environment, we have many opportunities to grow and our future is very bright. Looking at our H1 performance, as you know, our end markets have been slowing for the past 18 months. However, I think we would all recognize that challenges have accelerated in recent months with reduced client and candidate confidence driven by macroeconomic uncertainty and rising interest rates. December was particularly difficult as activity slowed into the run-up to Christmas. Against these backdrops, our teams have worked hard to navigate market conditions. But as reflected at our Q1 and Q2 results, we have also balanced cost reductions with protecting our positioning in key markets. With headline fees down 9% to GBP 583 million in the first half, this has inevitably driven negative operational profit leverage, meaning operating profit declined by 37% to GBP 60.1 million. The profit decline was magnified by group fees slowing sharply from around minus 7% in the first 5 months of the half to minus 13% in December. Because this slowdown came at the end of the period, most of the fee reduction flowed straight to profit and contributed to an H1 conversion rate down 460 basis points year-on-year to 10.3% or 10.8% working day adjusted. Our cash generation was good with cash conversion up significantly year-on-year to 112% and a robust cash position to GBP 67 million. As a sign of confidence in our strategy, the Board has maintained our interim dividend at GBP 0.95 per share. Given the markets we have faced, we have taken difficult decisions to manage our costs. Consultant headcount is down 12% overall with the largest reductions market seeing the toughest conditions such as Australia, U.S.A., and China. We restructured in several countries better aligning operations to market opportunities, delayering management, and reducing operating costs. In doing so, we incurred GBP 12.6 million of exceptional costs, which will drive approximately GBP 10 million of structural cost savings. We accelerated our efficiency programs with non-consultant heads down 3% in Q2 and further reductions ongoing. The combined effect of all our H1 actions will drive annualized cost savings of GBP 30 million with a further GBP 20 million expected in H2. Overall, I believe we have achieved a balance between managing our costs in the short-term while protecting our positioning for the future. This will significantly accelerate our profit recovery once market stabilize and effect. Turning to our countries. Our largest market of Germany was again our best performer. Fees were resilient and grew by a solid 3% with operating profit up 3% working day adjusted at a conversion rate of 23.4%. Our largest area of Temp and Contracting grew by 3% with volume sequentially stable through the half. Although we did not see our normal seasonal increase through Q2, Perm increased by 2%. Sector-wise engineering grew 11% with a good performance in automotive as well as the energy and renewable sector where we have several MSP contracts with all the major energy utilities. Our largest sector technology decreased by 3% while A&F was up 4%. While not immune to the tougher economy, we have delivered growth despite German GDP declining over the last 18 months or so. This highlights the strengths of our positions and the resilience of demand for skilled Contractors and Temps driven by talent shortages. We also continue to benefit from improving Temp margin and positive mix, including a successful introduction of a dynamic pricing model which is working well. Moving to the U.K. and Ireland conditions were clearly more challenging as the wider economy experienced a recession. Fees decreased by 14% and profit was down 63%. Temp fees declined by 11% with Perm tougher and down 16%. Fees in the private sector fell by 18% with the public sector more resilient and down 3%. Markets conditioned to slow through the half with Perm more impacted and volumes down 28%. We acted to reduce costs, ending the half with consultant headcount down 14% year-on-year or down 19% versus our peak level in September 2022. Our overall U.K. cost base will reduce further in H2 as we adjusted consultant headcount and several restructuring projects complete. However, given the pace of decline in fees and further deceleration in December, we incurred negative operating profit leverage, particularly in Q2. By sector, technology decreased by 26% versus a tough growth competitor. C&P decreased by 11% and A&F by 10%. While the U.K. market remains uncertain, our fee decline is less than most of our competitors. We have a leading business with a strong management team who are working hard to position the business in the most attractive sectors in line with our strategy which I will present later. Once the market recovers which it will, our actions will place us in a stronger position to capitalize on the opportunities that exist in the U.K. Conditions in ANZ also been difficult for some time and we changed our management there last May. During H1, we restructured the business, focusing on improving consultant productivity, driving operational efficiencies, and aligning management capacity to market conditions. I'm confident our actions will improve performance. However, in H1, fees were down 19%, and operating profit down 60%. We took firm action to reduce our costs, with consultant headcount down 20% year-on-year. But similar to the U.K., the pace of fee decline and the tough trading in December led to the profit decline. Temp fees fell by 15%, driven by volume down 17%, including significantly lower public sector activity. Perm fees were down 25%. Most specialisms traded in line with the overall average, including C&P, our largest ANZ business down 24%. Although the market remains tough in Australia, we are the leader by a distance and the structural long-term fundamentals for the economy and labor market continue to be strong. I have every confidence in the team and that our actions will deliver positive results with significant conversion rate recovery potential. In our Rest of World division, fees declined by 11% overall with operating profit down 65%. Profit decline was driven by slowing markets in EMEA and challenging conditions in China and the Americas. However, we have seen some recent signs of stability in both China and the U.S.A. Temp fees were flat overall with Perm down 16%. Regionally, EMEA was relatively resilient and decreased by 4%. However, as reflect at our Q2 update, we did see a slowdown in fees and activity in December which added to our profit decline. France is our largest rest of world country and its fees were flat but including Q2 down 6%. Italy and Belgium grew by 9% and 6%, although UAE was much stronger, up 26% with record fees. As a result of the slowdown in fees, we reduced headcount in several countries in December and our ongoing actions will reduce our EMEA cost base further in H2. Overall, the Americas was down 26% and was modestly loss-making. With Asia down 14%, we see continue to see challenging but stable conditions in China. Our businesses in the Americas and China were restructured in the half, including a reduction in non-fee earning headcount and right-sizing operational management. We expect both to return to a profitable position in H2. I will now hand over to James who will present our detailed financials.

Thank you, Dirk, and good morning, everyone. To give some background to these results, we entered FY '24 facing challenging market conditions across all geographies. Trading subsequently slowed through the half, notably in the majority of our Perm markets, including a tough December. Temp continued to be more resilient than Perm, although Temp fees did decline in Q2 for the first time since the pandemic and we did not see our normal seasonal uplift in Temp volumes through the half. As market conditions slowed, we took decisive action to reduce costs. We aligned consultant headcount to demand, restructured operations in several regions, and accelerated back office efficiency programs. Group consultant headcount decreased by 12% year-on-year and by 7% in the half and we now have around 1,200 fewer consultants than at peak in October 2022. Our actions taken to date have maintained solid levels of productivity despite the tougher market conditions, and we remain focused on driving productivity in H2 and beyond. Summarizing our financial performance. On a like-for-like basis, net fees decreased by 9% to GBP 583.3 million with pre-exceptional operating profit down 37% to GBP 60.1 million. H1 cash conversion of 112% was strong, meaning we finished the half with GBP 66.9 million of net cash after paying out GBP 68.3 million in core and special dividends in the half. Moving on to the income statement. Turnover decreased by 5% with net fees down 9%. The difference between headline and like-for-like growth was primarily the strengthening of the sterling versus the Australian dollar. Overall, FX movements decreased fees and operating profit by GBP 13.5 million and GBP 1.8 million respectively. Pre-exceptional earnings per share was GBP 2.37, a 42% decrease versus prior year driven by 37% lower operating profit, a modestly higher net finance charge, and an increase in the effective tax rate to 32%. Moving on to the performances of Temp and Perm, Temp fees were relatively resilient and decreased by 3% year-on-year or down 2% on a working day adjusted basis as a result of 2 fewer working days in Germany versus the prior year. Temp volumes, while sequentially stable through H1, did not see their normal seasonal uplift and as a result, decreased by 7%. This was partially offset by a 4% positive impact of mix and higher Temp rates and our underlying Temp margin was stable year-on-year at 15.2%. Perm fees decreased by 15% with activity slowing through the half. Overall volumes in the half decreased by 25% with fewer new job registrations and hiring processes extended. This was partially offset by a 10% increase in the average Perm fee driven by our actions to target higher salary markets and increased fee margins together with wage inflation which was less of a tailwind than the prior year. And as the chart in the top right corner shows, our actions to drive pricing increased group fees by GBP 43.2 million in the half. But our operational challenge was maintaining volume productivity in a more challenging market, notably in Perm as time to hire extended. This slide sets out our year-on-year operating profit bridge and provides additional color on our cost control actions. Starting with H1 '23 profit of GBP 97 million, we deduct the negative exchange impact of GBP 1.8 million and a 9% decrease in our like-for-like fees of GBP 55.1 million. Like-for-like costs decreased by 4% or GBP 20 million, driven by the following GBP 21.4 million related to the headcount reductions across both front and back office of around 1,200 employees versus the prior year and 770 employees through H1. Commissions and bonus payments decreased by GBP 6.6 million, driven by the decline in net fees and these were partially offset by average group pay rises of circa 3%, which increased payroll costs by around GBP 10 million in the half. Focused cost control on overhead spend including advertising, motor travel, and entertainment reduced our costs by a further GBP 5 million and partially offset by higher property costs driven by rent indexation despite a 3% reduction in our office footprint. Since our FY '23 results in August, our actions have delivered cost savings of GBP 30 million on an annualized basis, of which GBP 5 million impacted H1. Our actions to manage consultant capacity delivered GBP 20 million of this savings with the remaining GBP 10 million of annualized savings driven by our exceptional restructuring programs. We expect our ongoing cost actions will increase our annual cost savings to circa GBP 50 million by year-end. I've explained how challenging market conditions and a particularly tough December impacted fees in H1. And despite our decisive cost management through the half, this fee decline drove negative profit leverage which directly impacted our H1 operating profit. As a result, group conversion rate decreased by 460 basis points to 10.3% or 10.8% adjusted for working days. Regionally, Germany's conversion rate was stable year-on-year adjusted for working days. Although we saw material declines in all our other regions as fee reductions impacted profitability. Notably, our conversion rate in Rest of the World division was impacted by losses in Mainland China and the Americas. But as previously mentioned, we were decisive in our cost action in the UK&I, ANZ, and Rest of the World, and we expect our cost base to decrease further in H2. During the half year, we incurred an exceptional cost GBP 27.9 million, which comprised 2 parts. Firstly, a GBP 12.6 million charge related to the actions taken to restructure operations and back offices across our ANZ, UK&I, and Rest of the World businesses. Overall, the cash outflow in respect of the restructuring was GBP 6.8 million in H1, with a further GBP 2.5 million cash outflow expected in H2. In addition, and given the challenging trading environment in the U.S., we incurred a GBP 15.3 million non-cash exceptional charge from the partial impairment of goodwill in respect of our 2014 Veredus acquisition. The remaining Veredus goodwill balance at the 31 of December was GBP 7.1 million. Moving on to interest and tax. Our net finance charge for the half increased to GBP 4.6 million, driven by higher interest on the IAS 19 pension accounting, which is non-cash. We expect a full year finance charge of circa GBP 9 million, of which around GBP 6 million is non-cash. Our effective tax rate increased by 300 basis points to 32%, driven primarily by the geographic mix of profits, notably the impact of Germany which has a higher corporation tax rate of around 33% and represented 68% of group profits in H1. We expect the group's full year tax rate will be 32%. We delivered a strong cash performance in the half with cash from operations of GBP 67.3 million, representing a conversion of operating profit into operating cash flow of 112%. Our working capital outflow was GBP 3.6 million, as a reduction in our Temp debtor book was offset by a decrease in payables and a slight increase in debtor days to 36 days. From this, we paid tax of GBP 28.5 million, net interest of GBP 1.3 million, and cash restructuring costs of GBP 6.8 million resulting from our exceptional charge. Overall, this led to a free cash flow of GBP 30.7 million. On the right hand side, we detail how we used the cash generated. The main items were the payment of GBP 35.7 million of special dividends and GBP 32.6 million of core dividends in respect of FY '23. The purchase of GBP 12.3 million in treasury shares with that scheme now completed, CapEx of GBP 13.7 million, and pension deficit payments of GBP 9.1 million. Our full year CapEx guidance remains at circa GBP 30 million. Debtor day increased by 1 day to 36 days, primarily due to mix with our Germany Temp book, now representing a greater proportion of total debtors. Although debtor days remain below pre-pandemic levels, we ended the half with cash of GBP 66.9 million. On this slide, we compare the balance sheet of December with June. The main movements were our net cash position reduced by GBP 68.7 million as explained earlier. Our defined benefit surplus remain broadly unchanged with employer contributions and increased asset values largely offset by a decrease in the scheme discount rates, which increased scheme liabilities. In addition, we saw corporation tax prepayments in several countries, notably in Australia. Our priorities for free cash flow remain unchanged, namely to fund the group's investment and development, maintain a strong balance sheet, deliver a sustainable, progressive, and appropriate core dividend, and to return surplus cash to shareholders. And in line with this policy, the Board has declared an interim core dividend of GBP 0.95 per share or GBP 15.1 million in line with the prior year. And as a reminder, our policy for returning surplus cash to shareholders is based on distributing all funds above the cash buffer of GBP 100 million at each financial year end through an appropriate combination of special dividends and share buybacks subject to the economic outlook. So, in summary, fees declined by 9% as market conditions became more challenging through the half and trading slowed. Given the pace of declining fees, notably, through our second quarter, we incurred negative operating profit leverage and as a result, pre-exceptional operating profit declined by 37% to GBP 60.1 million. We acted decisively to align our capacity to market demands with consultant headcounts down 12% year-on-year. Our restructuring of operations in several countries and acceleration of our back office efficiency programs drove a 3% reduction in non-consultant headcount. In Q2, we may continue to maintain a strong balance sheet underpinned by cash conversion. Turning to current trading. While we remain mindful of challenging market conditions, our new year return to work in Temp and Contracting has been solid overall in ANZ and U.K. and in line with prior year trends. In Germany, our Temp and Contracting return to work is 2% behind prior year. In Perm, following December weakness we have seen a solid job flow in the new year and activity levels consistent with Q2 in most markets. However, we continue to see slow clients in candidate decision-making and longer than normal time to hire. At a regional level, Germany, Temp and Contracting volumes are rebuilding 2% behind the prior year. Overall Temp and Contracting volumes are currently down 5% year-on-year, partially offset by positive margins. Perm activity is relatively resilient, but modestly behind Q2. In UK&I and ANZ Temp and Contracting volumes are rebuilding in line with the prior year. UK&I volumes are currently down 11% and ANZ down 17%, consistent with Q2. Perm markets remain tough but are broadly stable with new job inflows in line with Q2. In Rest of the World EMEA activity levels are broadly consistent with Q2, while the Americas and Asia are sequentially stable. Overall, our key markets continue to be supported by skill shortages and we expect to see some further benefit in H2 from the positive effects of wage inflation globally, albeit at lower levels than in H1. Fee margins overall are stable. We expect total group headcount will reduce by circa, 3% to 4% in Q3 as we continue to focus on consultant productivity and further cost and efficiency programs. And finally, there are no material working day effects year-on-year in the second half. However, Easter is evenly split between Q3 and Q4 this year, while in FY '23 it fell entirely in Q4. We expect this to have a circa 1% to 2% negative impact on net fees at a group level in Q3, with a corresponding benefit to Q4. I will now hand back to Dirk to take us through our strategy.

Thank you, James. I will spend the next 10 minutes on our focused strategy and how we will better execute it with a clear focus on operational rigor for all our business lines and focus on the most profitable areas. As the new CEO, I can tell you that I'm not satisfied with our current profit performance. We know that the market today is tough, but we have work to do to better position some of our businesses, we could and we should be doing better. So what is our goal? We want to build the leading business in talent and workforce solutions globally. To achieve this, our strategy focuses on the many structural growth opportunities we see and is designed to increase our business resilience, quality of earnings, and cash generation. My personal leadership goal is to return to and then exceed our previous peak profits of GBP 250 million. We will build greater sustainability and resilience within each country by focusing on 5 key strategic levers. We will also increase resilience across our country portfolio with more countries driving material profit contributions. And we will implement a new Golden Rule through the cycle that our profit growth must be higher than our fee growth which in turn must be higher than our headcount growth. Put simply, we will deliver improved consultant productivity in excess of inflation and we will better leverage our overhead costs, which will drive an improved conversion rate. On this slide, we present our key strategic levers. These are proven drivers of resilient long-term growth, having been the cornerstone of our successful organic growth strategy in Germany where we have grown operating profits from GBP 3 million in 2003 to well over GBP 100 million today. We have delivered this by having a clear focus on the most profitable areas of the market defining the right operating model for every business line by client type, contract form, roles, and delivery model. Firstly, we will enhance our leading position in the most in-demand future job categories such as STEM recruitment in both Temp and Perm. We will build on our existing scale to become the marketplace of choice for candidates and clients. Secondly, we will have a greater focus on higher-skilled and higher paid roles, which will increase our ability to grow fees and margins. Employers need experts, long-term talent partners in the most skilled short areas. Our deep understanding of candidate and client needs makes us a partner of choice. Thirdly, we will increase our focus on resilient and growing industries and end markets. This will increase structural growth opportunities and reduce our cyclicality. Of course, every country has different key sectors, which will need different types of skills. Consequently, we are defining key industries within each country and training our consultants to be true industry experts. Fourthly, we will continue to build stronger relationships with our clients and candidates by combining great bottom-up service on each placement with real scale in top-down outsourcing and solutions. We will increase our market share and the repeatability of our fees. Finally, we will drive an increasing proportion of non-Perm fees in our business. Our Perm businesses globally have an important role to play and will continue to be core long-term services. However, growth in high-skill non-Perm jobs is a global megatrend. Talented people and employers increasingly want flexibility and as leaders in some of the most attractive non-Perm markets, we are ideally placed to capitalize and further build scale. We have strong market-leading businesses at Hays, many of which are already implementing our strategy well, but we need to ensure this is happening across all our countries. Large businesses like Germany and Switzerland, which are proven to be resilient over time have delivered consistently high compound growth. However, we also have some areas which are volatile and more cyclical and this plan will address this. In all our countries, we can improve our focus on the key growth industries and shop categories of the future. I want to be clear. Our new strategy is not one size fits all. We will tailor each region and country to its market and customer needs. Today we are in 33 countries and each needs to make a meaningful contribution to the group. All countries should be capable of delivering a 25% plus conversion rate. Clearly, we have different starting points in each country. Recognizing this, we have defined 3 categories based on current market position, expertise, management capability, and the strength and depth of our 5 strategic levers. Box 1 is our key countries, Germany, Australia, and the U.K. These countries have been our core profit drivers for many years and they will also drive significant future growth. We have the management expertise, scale, and track record both to increase our conversion rates and materially grow each business. In Germany, all 5 strategic levers are in place. However, staying at the forefront of the most skilled short shop categories, targeting structural growth sectors, and building stronger relationships with clients and candidates requires constant focus. There are always improvements to be made, but I firmly believe that longer-term we can at least double the size of our Germany profits. The opportunity in front of us as the clear market leader is huge. In the U.K. and Australia, our first half performance showed that some of the 5 levers need improvement. To restore profitability to pre-pandemic level and beyond we need greater focus, focus on higher salary job areas, focus on the most skill-short parts of the market, and focus on operational rigor. I'm convinced that this is achievable, and we have highly material profit recovery potential in U.K. and in Australia. Box 2 shows our focus countries Austria, France, Italy, Japan, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, and the U.S.A. These future key drivers of long-term growth will deliver greater profit diversity. Each of these countries already has some of the 5 strategic levers. However, we are devoting management focus and investment to equip them with all 5. Our aim in doing this is to build much bigger businesses based on market leadership of key growth sectors. For example, Spain, France, and Italy together made just under GBP 20 million in profit last year ahead of pre-pandemic levels and we are ready to significantly scale operations. We could double or even triple profits in these 3 countries in the next 5 years. Box 3 shows our emerging countries. These each have growth potential and are attractive markets. They are also valuable from a network standpoint to service our enterprise clients but we will employ stricter management criteria on our emerging country box. Each country will focus on the most attractive parts of each local market. Growth must be highly profitable and each country must prove it can deliver a conversion rate of at least 25%. In aggregate, this box can become a material profit driver. My 25 years at Hays has taught me that enhanced execution and operational rigor is essential to consistently deliver high conversion rates and resilient profit growth and I know as a group we can do this better. This has been my track record and is the significant value I will bring to the future. We will focus on the most profitable areas of the markets and on increasing the profitability of existing businesses. Improved productivity and our Golden Rule are key. This underpins our medium-term group conversion rate target of 22% to 25%. Ultimately, it is essential that we make more profit per employee, not simply more fees. And this is a mindset change, I'm driving across the business. Put simply, the best people focused on the best job markets and clients will deliver much better outcomes in terms of placements, productivity, and profitability. So how we will do this? We are digging deep into our operations with analysis of each business line. This includes re-setting our management structures, ensuring our colleagues are focused on the right strategic areas. As examples, we have already closed some businesses, including sales and marketing Temp with SME clients in Germany and statement of works in France. We have identified efficiencies from greater consistency of operating models, and are reallocating resources to target the most attractive markets across Perm and Temp. To deliver enhanced rigor, each strategic lever will have distinct KPIs in place. For levers 1, 2, and 3, we will make better use of data to track growth in job categories and evaluate businesses against local market opportunities. We are closely tracking our progress in areas like STEM recruitment and the development of candidate salary and dynamic pricing. For lever 4 strategic clients, we will better measure our success in placements and cross-selling per client. I'm convinced we can win market share by increasing our network effects within clients. And for lever 5, growth in non-Perm, which is highly complementary to many future job categories and resilient industries, we will better automate our end-to-end Temp workflow, reducing compliance costs and admin time. At group level, I see significant potential to better deliver corporate functions and we have accelerated our back-office efficiency programs. This will standardize processes, removing costs and better leverage our shared service centers. We will also drive significant medium-term benefits from investing in our, in our own technology stack, working with the best in class partners, and bringing in the best of AI and automation into our processes. Our new Chief Technology Officer has made a strong start and I look forward to presenting more on our tech strategy and likely future benefits from this investment in August. So, in conclusion, we know that our markets and economies today are uncertain, but they will recover and the decisive actions we are taking will allow us to strongly capitalize in the future. We have market-leading businesses in key countries and sectors with strong long-term growth potential. But I am not happy with our current profitability and I'm convinced we can do better. Our clear strategy and the operational changes we have made are designed to deliver 3 key things. First, great focus on the most attractive and skill short markets worldwide. Second, growth, diversity, and resilience of profit both across our country portfolio and within each country. And 3, enhanced operational execution and rigor across all our businesses. The outcome from this will be a far more resilient and significantly more profitable Hays underpinned by our Golden Rule. Our aspiration is to exceed our previous peak operating profit of GBP 250 million and deliver 22% to 25% conversion rates. We will also maintain a strong balance sheet, and as our business is highly cash generative, I expect to return significant cash to shareholders over the medium-term. We have outstanding people here at Hays, and I am determined to grow our expertise and make Hays an even better place to work in the future. We would now be delighted to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] We are now going to proceed with our first question, and the questions come from the line of Rory McKenzie from UBS.

It's Rory here. Firstly, just 2 questions on how to read your current trading comments. So, on Temp and contractor, can you say how the group and regional return to work rates compared to longer-term trends rather than just compared to the previous year, which was still a bit unusual, maybe to get a sense of what a normal sequential build would look like? And then on Perm, is there any sense, the drop in the volumes in December actually just shifted in timing into the new year or would you say that your teams still feel that the Perm market is overall tougher than it was looking in October or November?

Thank you, Rory. I think I take the Perm one. And the Temp one James takes definitely, from my perspective, with my experience in Perm in December, this is -- we strongly believe this is just the shift into January from my perspective. But, James, maybe you comment on the Temp and...

Yes, I think, Rory, just on the Perm. I think, as Dirk said, we definitely saw a bit of a catch-up in January from some of the Perm that didn't materialize in December because, remember, back to what we talked about at the Q2 IMS, we saw quite a slowdown in decision-making through December. And certainly, in the U.K. and Australia, we saw a bit of a pickup in January. I think what we're basically saying about the new year, Rory, in January through so far the last 6 weeks is that the activity has come back. If I look at job registrations and interview numbers, for example, through the first 6 weeks of this calendar year, I think we're probably back at sort of October-November levels. So certainly, December did feel like a bit of a, I wouldn't say a blip but it certainly felt like sort of more of a unique slowdown. I think the bit that I'm not clear on yet, and I'll probably need another few weeks to really get a feel for, is how well that activity that we've seen in the new year is converting into placement. Clearly, we recognize revenue on start date, so a lot of the work that we do through January and February hasn't yet landed and will land in the next few weeks. So I think I'll have a much better, clearer picture of the quarter trading in Perm when we get to April for the Q3. In terms of -- I'll pick up the question on Temp and Contracting. We've highlighted in the statement that Australia and New Zealand and the UK&I were in line with prior year and Germany was a little bit behind, a couple of percentage points behind the normal return to work. In terms of what that looks like compared to the long-term trend, and I do look at this in some detail, looking back to where we were in 2018, 2019, it's fair to say in the U.K., it's in line with what we've seen historically. Germany last year was in line with the historic return to work and obviously, we've called out that we're a couple of percentage points behind that. Australia has been a little bit of a funny one over the last 2 or 3 years because we've definitely seen post-pandemic a longer holiday season in Australia, and we talked about that last year. Certainly, if I compare last year's return to work versus where we were in 2018, 2019, it was slower behind that longer-term trend. However, I just think that's the reality of the world we're in now and that -- what we've seen this year is in line with the prior year, so that's the key trend there. Hopefully, that all makes sense.

Yes, that's helpful. And then, Dirk, I just had 2 questions on the new focus strategy you've outlined. And firstly, can you explain what you found in your business review so far that makes you confident that all countries should aim for over a 25% margin and that's clearly a big step up for lots of markets? So what plans are you opting to put in place to get there? And then, secondly, you talked about the Golden Rule of improving profitability and productivity. Do you think that is a big shift for some other parts of Hays outside Germany, where maybe the objective in the past was more around scale?

Yes. Thank you for the question. The first one, do I really believe that every country can achieve the 25% conversion rate? Yes, I strongly believe we are in 33 countries and in these countries, there is -- in each of the countries, there is huge potential. And what we saw when we dig deeper, we see really profitable areas within every country with the right operating models where we earn good money for sure, always room for improvement in other areas where we have to tweak the operating model or get out as we did in Germany. For instance, in the Temp SME sales and marketing area where after we've been trying this for years and we realized this is not a good place for us where we can earn enough money from skill level and so on. And so, we are focusing more on the contracting side than the sales and marketing bid in Germany. So, I think, and you have this -- we have to take this decision in every country. And, yes, I see a huge potential and we will all always find sweet spots in every country to achieve this 25%, but we have to be selective. And then it comes to your second question, to the Golden Rule, it is true in the past, from our perspective, or especially from my perspective, we had a too high focus on just net fees grow -- net fee growth, we are celebrating and we still do this all-time high net fee records. That's nice. But I'm more focused or definitely focused on profit. So I'm celebrating more the operating profit growth and not just the net fee all-time record. So I think that's what we are doing. And this is definitely when we dig deeper in the business lines, this is exactly what makes the difference to the past, I would say. When we're analyzing every business line by business line, then you realize we are making -- we have -- most of the business lines, they have good net fees. But the question is, do we really earn enough money with that? And that's the way what we are doing and it's, James and I, we are analyzing every country and every business line and we really have a lot of fun and digging deep in these things. So, yes, I'm confident this is the right strategy and the right way forward.

We are now going to proceed with our next question, and it comes from the line of Kean Marden from Jefferies.

Thanks for the comprehensive update. I've got a couple of questions related to the announcement you made earlier this week, and then a quick one for James. So just, first of all, would you mind sharing some of the attributes that you sought when appointing new non-Exec directors to the business over the last few weeks? And secondly, the ESG committee, which I think is referred to in the RNS as well. What's the remit of that committee and that just comprise Ned's, or will others from Hays participate and how does that sort of interface with the rest of the organization? And then A quick one for James, is that cash tax in the first half was a bit higher than was expected relative to the P&L rate. Does that drop substantially in H2? If you can help, give us some full year guidance on cash tax, please.

I guess, James takes this question.

Kean, yes, just on the first question around the new non-executives clearly, we've just had retirement with Peter Williams after 9 years on the Board and obviously, we're looking for replacements for new non-executives, and we always look at the range of skills and attributes that they bring that complement the existing executives non-executives and also make sure that we cover all the areas you'd expect. So what we've got there is someone who's clearly got a long track record within the HR area. That's a really important area for us. And secondly, around the commercial and operational as well. So both are existing executives in other businesses, which I think is also a good complement to have to get the perspectives of other businesses and how they are seeing things as well. So I think that's important. And on the ESG side of things came, just like every other organization, there's a huge amount of work to do in this area, whether it's from a financial disclosure, whether it's from a social purpose, whether it's from a governance and all of the work that the FRC and all listed companies are required in that area as well. So there's a lot going on in that space. We've decided to form a committee as a sub-committee of the PLC board that will be led by the non-executive body. But clearly, David and myself will play a role within that from an executive perspective and clearly it's very consistent with what most PLCs are doing right now. Just picking up on the question on cash tax, you're absolutely right. We had a higher cash tax than P&L charge, this half, specifically some prepayments that we made primarily in Australia and what I would expect is to see a lower cash tax charge in the second half. So over the course of the year, it would be broadly in line with the P&L charge, Kean. So, yes, we should get a bit of a benefit in the second half from a cash flow perspective.

We are now going to proceed with our next question, and the questions come from the line of Steve Woolf from [ DB Numis. ]

Just a couple from me. Just looking at the German model that you're sort of presenting as a way forward. I'm just wondering, do you have any sort of thoughts on the structural differences with the German recruitment market and how that might then be applied elsewhere or tweaks you might have to make to that? Secondly, in terms of the German Temp contract being 2% lower, are there any particular markets that stand out as perhaps lagging behind others? And then finally, on the incremental cost savings of that GBP 20 million, I was just wondering whether it's possible to split out any sort of structural or cyclical elements to that you think might be, be held, or then come back when the market improves.

I take the first 2 and then James will answer the GBP 20 million question. Yes, the German model, actually I think it is important to realize when we talk the German business it is a blueprint for the rest of the world. Then this means not that we are just copying what we are doing in Germany. I think every recruitment market, every industry is totally different. And in the U.K., for instance, you have way more service industry and in Germany, you have a big automotive industry and so on. So these are totally different markets and you have different legal environments. And so Temp and Contracting are also from a legal framework a bit different and so we are not going to just use the German operating models and put it in place in the other countries. It is more that we think about and digging deeper in what are the sweet spots first. And this is, I guess what is different in Germany. So we are operating in sweet spots at the end where we can earn a lot of money from our perspective or the markets are attractive and we are not trying to deal and cover all of the markets just to focus on the most attractive ones. And then as I've described before, with this operational rigor, executing on this and really having this operate -- this profit focus, I think that's for us important. And if it comes to the Perm market, for instance, it is totally different in most EMEA countries than maybe in the U.K. or even in the States but in the U.K. definitely, because in Germany you have just 20% of the placements of the candidates moving are using a recruitment agency. And in the U.K. it's the other way around and I think that's also important that you have a more immature per market, for instance in Germany. So the markets are different and we try to address this in every country differently. But with this operating profit focus, Golden Rule and just thinking which operating models are really fit for purpose in each country and in each business line. And then coming to the Temp and Contracting market in Germany at the end for sure we have, in Temp, for instance, we have a big exposure in automotive in the highly qualified area, engineering, construction things, and so on. So I think we are strong there. And actually, when you see the shape of the German automotive industry and the shift to [ electro-e-mobility, ] I would say they are really outperforming the market or we are outperforming the market with our German business. This is really outstanding that we keep up in such really difficult market situation. So I would say the Temp market is mainly automotive. In Germany, this is the sweet spot more with enterprise clients and our contracting business has really split about many industries and different industries. So I would say this is from the German side. James?

Sure. And I think just tying that back to the return to work, Steve, and the 2% gap versus the prior year, pretty much as the contracting business is there or thereabouts in line with where we were last year and the normal trends we've seen. And as Dirk highlighted, we have a big business in Temp and specifically within automotive and the broader manufacturing industrial sector and that is where we see more of the weakness at this stage. We're probably more like 5% down, something like that versus prior year in that area. So I think Dirk is absolutely, right. I think we're still confident that we're performing well in that market, but that market is tougher than where we were a few months back. Just I'll pick up the final question on costs and the sort of structural versus perhaps more cyclical element and clearly, we gave the color on the first half of the GBP 30 million annualized saves, which falls between GBP 20 million of that would be more -- what I consider more cyclical, i.e., a reduction of capacity and GBP 10 million was more structural, i.e., more overhead, operational, and back office management. The second half we've guided towards GBP 20 million of annualized saves. And I think at this stage, I don't expect it to be about 50-50 between the 2. That's my expectation at this stage. Clearly, we've got a bit of way to go on that until we deliver the plan. So I'll have a better view of that when we get to the full year. Steve in August. But at this stage, I'm expecting about 50-50 between the 2.

Perfect. Just one final one. Just in the commentary then, about focusing on more non-Perm activity, you have quite a balanced business at the moment. Do you have sort of a percentage in mind where you think you would like to hit as a sweet spot overall?

Not at all. I think we have a well-balanced split between Temp and Perm at the moment. And for Perm, it's the same for all of our business lines. We want to have a profitable business. And what we realized when we are moving up the food chain in more the senior end or more higher skilled or more higher salary roles, we have more resilience. So it is more, if we do Perm, that we move up the food chain a bit to get it a bit more resilient and the same in Temp. It is more the business mix within the Temp and the Perm what we want to change, but not the overall split. I think we are well-positioned with that.

[Operator Instructions] We are now going to proceed with our next question, and the questions come from the line of Karl Green from RBC.

Just 2 questions from me. Firstly, just in terms of the rebalancing of group profits by country and geography, can you say over a sort of medium-term time horizon, say the end of the decade, what do you think the split of profits would look like by those 3 buckets of key countries, focus and emerging if you had an ideal model. I guess being devil's advocate, one of the issues with the equity story is that there's always been that heavy reliance on Germany, Australia, and the U.K., and always a reason to be wary about one of those at any given point in time. So that would be helpful just in terms of how you see that rebalancing playing out, particularly given that you're still confident in the doubling of German profits. And the second question, much more prosaically, is just back to the comment about the debtor days ticking up a little bit to 36 days due to the mixed shift towards German Temp. Can you just remind me what the debtor days profile looks like on German Temp?

Okay, I take the first question and then maybe James can also comment on the first question and then takes the -- he takes definitely the second question. So, no, we don't have a clear target and how it should be balanced between the 3 boxes but it is clear that and I think this is what we want to improve, that we have more profit driver or more countries with meaningful profits. And otherwise, why is the point that we are in 33 countries? So I think that's what we are aiming for and I'm happy if we have many countries above GBP 5 million or above GBP 10 million. So I think that's our goal and our aim. And we are -- at the moment, we are analyzing all of the business lines in all of the countries and we are now in the budget season in the next months and then they will come up with the budget for every business line in every country for the next financial year. And then we are planning over summer to have a 5-year modeling at least. And then we will have a better view of what every country can or should deliver on this business mix. But so far we have no clear goal. The goal is just to have a more meaningful profit driver. That's it. James?

Yes, no, I agree with Dirk. It's quite early for us in the process to kind of look that far ahead, Karl, I think, clearly, we've signaled today that we still expect to double profits in Germany, for example, because we're still highly confident in the structural opportunity there. But I think, as Dirk spoke about in the presentation, the bucket on the right-hand side of that slide, which was the emerging countries, a lot of countries in that box. In aggregate, though, that can be a material profit driver for us as a group, because some of those businesses today are not particularly profitable, relatively low conversion rates, and as Dirk mentioned, setting a really clear target at a 25% conversion rate is a requirement that we won't be looking at structural investment in those businesses and we will be more focused on profit generation. I do expect that bucket on the right-hand side of the slide to become much more material over time, and I think that will really help to diversify the profits over the longer-term. Karl, I'll just pick up the question on debtor days and then you're seeing that it increased by 1 day to 36 days versus 35 days last year. See actually, if I look at an individual country level it's pretty consistent actually with where we were in the prior year. And if we think back to where we were 4 or 5 years ago before the pandemic, we were typically at around 38, 39 days. So we're continuing to be well below where we were pre-pandemic. The actual increase of 1 day is actually mix. Germany is our highest DSO country of our major countries, and clearly, a higher proportion of our Temp debtor book is now in Germany because of, for obvious reasons of the resilience there. So it's really just a mix in the 1 day. I'm actually really happy and really quite proud actually, of how well our credit control teams have worked over the last 12 months. This is not an easy environment to collect cash in and we only had GBP 1.7 million of bad debt costs across the group, which was down on prior year, which I think is actually a pretty tremendous achievement in the world we're in. So, we're absolutely 100% focused on credit control. As you would -- you can imagine, we all read the papers around -- about, there is absolutely a cost of cash now of holding on to cash. So the focus of getting that out of our clients is absolutely critical. The team is doing a great job and I'm really actually very pleased with the cash performance this half.

We have no further questions on the phone lines for now. I will now hand back to James and Dirk to answer the webcast questions.

Great. Okay. We've got one on the -- coming through on the Internet from Andy Grobler at BNP Paribas. 3 parts to the question. Part 1, you mentioned you target 25% margins in each country. The U.K. hasn't made margins above 25% for 16 years. Is it realistic to see a return to 25% plus margins? That's question one. Question 2, what are the targets for Perm as a proportion of gross profits over the mid-term? And part 3, what is the time frame to generate GBP 250 million of profit?

So I take the first one. And so, what I've seen so far from our U.K. business, we really have a great business in the U.K. We are market leader, we have strong management teams and when you dig deeper in the single business lines, we have several business lines where we achieve already the 25%. It's more the mix, what we are doing. And for sure we have to do our homework, tweak our operating models in some area. So that's true. So I strongly believe that we have a fair chance to grow the conversion rate in this dimension. So the second one, what are the targets for Perm as a proportion of mid-term? So I think I answered this already before. We don't have a clear figure or what we are aiming for at the moment. So we will have a clearer view maybe in summer or in autumn when we have done our mid-term modeling of all our businesses. And the third one, it is not 10 years, but it's also not 1 year. Something in between. No. How can I judge this at the moment when the market is like this? So we need a bit of support, definitely from the market. So we are aiming this definitely in the next years, not in 10 years, but also we can't make it in the next 12 months for sure.

I think we've got one more question coming through the Internet, and that is from Sanjay at Liberum. Just one question. In the context of the 25% conversion target, how should we think about the resilience of that margin through the cycle? Would you hope for a lower divergence peak to trough as a function of less volatility in net fee income, particularly if the Perm mix reduces? I'll -- so, I will pick that one up Dirk. It's -- yes, I mean, I get the point. I mean we've talked about the Golden Rule through the cycle and how we deliver growth is important because it's important that we drive consultant productivity, and from the higher level of consultant productivity, we use that to drive a higher conversion rate across the group. Clearly, we do have cyclicality, and we're seeing that right now in the business. And actually driving a higher conversion rate in a tough market is difficult. But I think to a certain extent that does highlight the lack of resilience in some parts of our business compared to others and that's clearly a key focus of the strategy, is to build the resilience of the business over a period of time, focusing on the right parts of the market, having the right mix of temporary firms, and having the right focus on execution and on rigor, and making sure that we focus on the profitable parts of the business and also make sure that we are aware of the less profitable parts of the business. So I think clearly we will always be in a situation where a really hard market can impact the conversion rate in the shorter-term. But I think those are appropriate longer-term conversion rates for us as a business.

Yes, maybe I also can comment on this. So I think all about what we are doing digging deep in the business lines and having these 5 levers and having these different country boxes and all. It is just all about focus the Golden Rule and try to get a more balanced and diverse profit income and I think that's what we are doing and for sure we strongly believe that we can achieve this 25%, and -- but this is adding many, many different things together and in the past we were too -- maybe too dependent on 3 countries and what we've done in the countries. So I'm confident. Thank you.

We have no further questions now on the phone line either. So I will now hand back to Dirk for closing remarks. Thank you.

Thank you very much. See you soon. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.