Persbericht Vedior - cijfers 4ekw en heel 2007
7 februari 2008, 7:11 uur | FD.nl/Betten
Amsterdam (BETTEN FINANCIAL NEWS) - Hier volgt de tekst van het persbericht van Vedior
CEO’s Statement
Tex Gunning, Vedior’s Chief Executive said, “The results for the fourth quarter bring to a
conclusion a very successful year for the Group. Throughout 2007, Vedior has achieved excellent
results in both our established and emerging markets, and with significant growth coming from our
permanent placement activities.
In fact, these annual results mark a new high for Vedior and I would, therefore, like to pay credit to
all our employees for their skill, their discipline, their focus, and their professionalism during the
course of the year and, in particular, during this final quarter where they were faced with other
distractions.
I am very pleased with the progress made with our strategic review which began at the end of
October and also the integration discussions with Randstad following the conditional agreement to
combine the two companies announced on 3 December.”
Annual Results
Our results for 2007 have been the best Vedior has ever achieved. As well as a record high in
sales, gross profit and operating income, we also made great strides towards achieving our
stated financial objectives.
Over the past few years, we have continuously improved our operating margins. In 2007, the
operating margin target was reached in the Rest of World region and exceeded in the Rest of
Europe region. France, the UK and the Netherlands are all on track to reach their operating
margin targets in 2008.
Growth in traditional staffing in most of our markets, along with the continuing progress of our
education, engineering/technical, accounting/finance, legal, interim management and
telebusiness sectors have led to outstanding increases in operating income. Operating income
for the Group increased 24% organically to $369.4 million. The operating margin (operating
income excluding special items as a percentage of sales) was 4.4%, up from 3.8% in 2006.
The development of our permanent placement activities resulted in high levels of growth
throughout the year in many countries, most notably France, the Netherlands and India.
Overall, the demand for permanent placement led to a 28% increase in fees to $331.1million.
Permanent placement now represents 3.9% of Group sales and 20.3% of gross profit.
In almost all of our geographies, we saw strong increases in operating income in 2007, with the
best performances coming from a number of our European markets (France, Germany, the
Netherlands, Belgium and Spain) as well as from Canada, Australia and Latin America. In the
US, a weaker economy resulted in a 9% decline in operating income although the ongoing
demand for professional/executive staffing contributed stable sales growth.
Improvement in operational efficiencies resulted in an increase in our conversion ratio for the
year (operating income excluding special items divided by gross profit), from 20.3% to 22.6%.
Gross profit was $1,633.3 million in 2007 compared to $1,429.1million in 2006, an organic
increase of 12%. Gross profit increased in all our major regions with the highest growth
coming from Canada, Australia and Spain. The Group’s gross margin was 19.4%, up from
18.7% in 2006.
As a percentage of sales, total costs were 15.0%, up slightly from 14.9% in 2006.
Currency effects decreased both sales and operating income by 1%.
*Excluding non recurring items (see page 9).
The average tax rate for the Group was 32% (excluding non-recurring items) compared to
31% in 2006.
Cash flow from operating activities increased to $260 million in 2007 from $206 million in 2006.
Business Development
During 2007, Vedior continued its active programme of organic expansion and made eight
acquisitions. The number of countries the Group operates in increased from 48 in 2006 to 50,
with the addition of Thailand and Angola to our network, by the end of 2007.
Within established markets, Vedior continues to launch new sectors to broaden our service
offering in local markets and also provide a platform for long-term organic growth.
We continued to expand our permanent placement activities in many of our markets as an area
of significant growth this year.
The combined consideration paid for acquisitions in 2007 was $126 million (2006:$157 million).
Strategic Review
We began the fourth quarter with the launch of a strategic review in order to take Vedior to its
next stage of development. In broad terms, it was established that the three most important
issues Vedior needed to address was a portfolio challenge, a performance challenge, and a
clarification of corporate roles.
It was a point of serendipity, rather than any deliberate planning, that discussions with Randstad
commenced during our strategic review.
It was concluded during the strategic review that a merger with Randstad would help us to
address the challenges as we had identified them.
Management Outlook
We are facing a more uncertain economic environment with limited visibility. However, the
year has got off to a satisfactory start, with no signs of a significant slowdown.
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