TIDMSTAF
RNS Number : 8844K
Staffline Group PLC
27 April 2020
27 April 2020
STAFFLINE GROUP PLC
("Staffline", the "Company" or the "Group")
Company Update
Staffline, the recruitment and training group, provides the
following management and operational update:
Board Changes and Corporate Governance
Further to the Company's Directorate Changes announcement on 24
April 2020, Staffline is pleased to announce the appointment of Ian
Lawson as Executive Chairman of the Group with immediate effect.
This appointment follows a six-week period during which Ian has
been acting as an independent board adviser to the Company.
Ian brings over 15 years' public company board-level experience
across both the support services and engineering sectors. He
retired from Severfield PLC in January 2018 after serving over four
years as Chief Executive, and prior to this he was a main board
director of Kier Group PLC from 2005 to 2013, with responsibilities
for the Services, Property and Residential Divisions.
As Executive Chairman, Ian will oversee both the operational and
strategic running of the business, alongside his board
responsibilities as a member of the Audit and Remuneration
Committees and Chair of the Nominations Committee.
Following Chris Pullen's resignation on 19 February 2020, Chris
has continued in his role, while an orderly succession has been
arranged, in order to maintain business continuity. Following Ian's
appointment, Chris will no longer be a member of the board of
directors.
Richard Thomson, who joined the board as Non-Executive Director
on 17 September 2019, will become Senior Independent Director with
immediate effect and will also Chair the Remuneration
Committee.
Albert Ellis, who recently joined the board as Non-Executive
Director after over 21 years at Harvey Nash, the technology
recruitment and IT solutions group, has taken the position of Chair
of the Audit Committee of the Board. Albert is a qualified
Chartered Accountant.
Daniel Quint remains in his role as Interim Chief Financial
Officer with a focus on completing the Company's 2019 audit, which
the Board remains confident will be completed within the statutory
reporting timeframe.
Together, the Board believes these changes significantly improve
the corporate governance structure of the Group.
Current Trading and Covid-19 update
Recruitment
As announced on 25 March 2020, the Company's Recruitment
division is experiencing significant variance in levels of demand
between customer segments as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. As
previously disclosed, Staffline has responded well to the sudden
and unpredicted surge in demand within the food sector given the
size of the Company's database, geographic reach and investment in
digital worker engagement. The Company's web-based platform
continues to successfully connect displaced workers with the vital
roles required in the food supply chain. A record 87,000 digital
applications were submitted through the www.staffline.co.uk and
www.feedthenation.co.uk gateways in the month of March, over 2.5
times that of February.
While demand within the food sector, including food processing,
food logistics and supermarkets, has been strong to date, demand
from other sectors, such as manufacturing, retail and automotive,
has diminished considerably. On a net basis, despite food sector
customers representing approximately 60% of Staffline's client
base, this growth in demand is not currently large enough to offset
the temporary shutdown of the majority of other clients in non-food
sectors. Accordingly, the Company has been taking contingency
steps, which have included utilising the Government's Furlough
scheme where possible, noting this has been applied to certain
temporary workers in addition to certain of the Company's permanent
employees.
PeoplePlus
Well-developed business continuity and resilience plans,
together with digital operating models, have meant that the
business can continue to operate the majority of its services
adhering to recent 'isolation measures'. However, loss of classroom
delivery, and funder positions moving towards providing cost
support only will impact certain areas. The in-year new business
intake which had been forecast to be strong in 2020 has also
weakened. Mitigating actions have been put in place to support
management's continued drive to clear profitability notwithstanding
the wider market disruption.
Liquidity and financing
The Company is benefitting from HMRC's measures designed to
support businesses in light of COVID-19, particularly with respect
to VAT deferral, which has significantly improved the Company's
liquidity through the end of 2020. This is despite a smaller
offsetting working capital impact relating to timing of payments to
furloughed staff.
The Board expects to agree and implement a revised financing
structure in respect of its main banking facilities ahead of the
publication of the Company's annual results for the year ended 31
December 2019 as good progress has been made.
2019 Audit
The Company continues to progress with its 2019 audit and
expects to publish its annual results for the year ended 31
December 2019 during June 2020.
Outlook
The Company has now completed its reforecasting exercise, and
while the Board is not in a position to provide explicit guidance
on the out-turn for the year ending 31 December 2020 due to the
current uncertainty surrounding the impact of COVID-19, the board
is reassured that each of the two divisions are cautiously
optimistic about achieving a positive result on an underlying EBITA
basis. Considering the impact of COVID-19 on volumes in certain
sectors across our business, the Board would see this as a strong
result and a demonstration of the resilience of the business.
This reforecasting exercise will form part of a wider
strengthening of the Group's financial controls and reporting
framework designed to improve the quality and timeliness of
financial information, which is an ongoing priority for the newly
comprised Board. In turn the Board will look to provide clearer
information to the market on its financial position and in
particular its 2021 outlook, which should substantially benefit
from the positive structural changes underway in the business.
Richard Thomson, Senior Independent Director of Staffline,
commented:
"We are delighted to welcome Ian to the board. Ian is an
extremely experienced PLC executive and we are pleased to announce
an appointment of such calibre. Having acted as an independent
adviser to Staffline's Board over the last six weeks, Ian
understands the challenges that we face and is well-placed to lead
the business.
"The Board would also like to thank Chris for his contribution
to Staffline over the last five years, initially as CFO and
latterly as CEO and for his recent work in ensuring an orderly hand
over.
"Whilst it is clearly a challenging time, we now believe we have
a Board in-place with the depth and breadth of experience to
navigate the business through the current period of
uncertainty."
Ian Lawson, Executive Chairman of Staffline, also commented:
"I am delighted to be joining Staffline and firmly believe that
despite facing a number of challenges in the medium term, I've seen
first-hand over the last six weeks that it has a strong and
supportive collective in-place capable of meeting the needs of our
blue-chip customer base."
The following information is disclosed pursuant to Schedule Two,
paragraph (g) of the AIM Rules for Companies in relation to Ian
Lawson's appointment as Chairman of the Board:
Full name Ian Michael Lawson age 62 (born 17 September 1957)
and age
Current directorships 1. Billington Holdings Plc (co.no. 02402219 appointed
1 October 2018).
2. Tolent Plc (co.no. 03819314 appointed 1 May 2018).
3. NJDR Group Ltd (co.no. 09822571 appointed 5 March
2019).
------------------------------------------------------------
Past directorships 1. Severfield Plc (co.no. 01721262 ).
------------------------------------------------------------
Ian has no interests in the shares of Staffline Group plc. There
is no other information that is required to be disclosed pursuant
to Schedule Two, paragraph (g) of the AIM Rules for Companies.
For further information, please contact:
Staffline Group plc via Vigo Communications
www.stafflinegroupplc.co.uk
Ian Lawson, Executive Chairman
Richard Thomson, Senior Independent Director
Liberum NOMAD and Broker
www.liberum.com
Bidhi Bhoma / Joshua Hughes 020 3100 2222
Vigo Communications Financial PR 020 7390 0230
www.vigocomms.com staffline@vigocomms.com
Jeremy Garcia / Antonia Pollock / Charlie
Neish
Market Abuse Regulation
This announcement is released by Staffline Group plc and
contains inside information for the purposes of the Market Abuse
Regulation (EU) 596/2014 ("MAR") and is disclosed in accordance
with the Company's obligations under Article 17 of MAR. The person
who arranged for the release of this announcement on behalf of
Staffline Group plc was Phil Gormley, Company Secretary.
About Staffline - Recruitment, Training and Support
Enabling the Future of Work(TM)
Staffline is the UK's market leading Recruitment and Training
group. It has two divisions:
Recruitment Division
Staffline is the UK's leading provider of flexible blue-collar
workers, supplying over 60,000 staff per day to c. 1,600 private
sector clients, across a wide range of industries including
agriculture, drinks, driving, food processing, logistics and
manufacturing. It operates from over c.460 locations in UK,
Republic of Ireland and Poland. Its world leading Customer
Experience platform provides optimised customer-based staffing
management solutions whilst providing market-leading levels of job
satisfaction for workers.
PeoplePlus Division
Staffline is the leading adult skills and training provider in
the UK, delivering apprenticeships, adult education, prison
education and skills-based employability programmes across the
country.
Skills and Training - market leading provider of Apprenticeships
(both Levy and non-Levy), learning and development, adult education
and health and well-being programmes to the Private and Public
sector.
Justice and Community - largest independent provider of
education and training services for prisoners and ex-offenders, as
well as individual support services for carers and people with
disabilities, both at home and in the work place.
Employability - market leading provider of programmes providing
back-to-work education, skills support services to the unemployed
and enterprise advice to individuals wanting to start their own
business.
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of this information may apply. For further information, please
contact rns@lseg.com or visit www.rns.com.
END
UPDSESEFMESSESL
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 27, 2020 02:00 ET (06:00 GMT)
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