REG - FDM Group plc - Trading Statement

FDM (Holdings)Announcement

29/01/2025 07:00

For best results when printing this announcement, please click on link below:
https://newsfile.refinitiv.com/getnewsfile/v1/story?guid=urn:newsml:reuters.com:20250129:nRSc0323Va&default-theme=true

RNS Number : 0323V  FDM Group (Holdings) plc  29 January 2025

29 January 2025

FDM GROUP (HOLDINGS) PLC ("FDM GROUP", "FDM" or "THE GROUP")

YEAR END TRADING UPDATE

FDM Group, a global professional services provider with a focus on Information
Technology, today provides a trading update for the year to 31 December 2024,
ahead of its full year results, which will be released on 19 March 2025.

Group Trading in the Period and Closing Balance Sheet

The Board anticipates that the Group's financial performance for the year to
31 December 2024 will be in line with its expectations.

Against a continuing backdrop of very challenging market conditions, the Group
delivered a resilient performance in 2024. Throughout the period the Board
maintained its focus on realigning recruitment, training, Consultant resource,
and internal staffing levels to better match with the market conditions; this
included a reduced number of training completions during the year (2024: 877
training completions; 2023: 1,338 training completions) and a reduction in
internal headcount of approximately 30%.

Revenue for the year to 31 December 2024 is expected to be £258 million,
down 23% in comparison to the prior year (2023: £334 million). On a constant
currency basis revenue decreased by 21%, or £70 million.

The Group ended the year with 2,578 Consultants placed with clients (2023:
3,892) - a lower level of Consultants deployed than previously anticipated.
The UK closed with 1,056 Consultants deployed (2023: 1,411); North
America closed with 742 Consultants deployed (2023: 1,322); APAC closed with
524 Consultants deployed (2023: 832); and EMEA closed with 256 Consultants
deployed (2023: 327). As at 28 January 2025 the Group has 2,626 Consultants
placed with clients.

The Group's balance sheet remains robust with closing cash balances of £41
million (2023: £47 million), and cash conversion strong at 120% (2023:
112%). The Group has no debt.

Outlook

Rod Flavell, Group CEO, commented:

"We anticipate that market conditions will remain uncertain during 2025, and
it is difficult to predict when they might demonstrate signs of a sustained
improvement. While we continue to see encouraging levels of engagement with
clients, it is unclear how soon clients' hiring budgets will be released to
enable a recovery in our major end markets. Consequently, the Board will
continue to take the appropriate measures to adjust recruitment, training, and
staffing levels to align with market conditions and seek to optimise the
performance of the Group for all of our stakeholders.

As noted above, we opened 2025 with a lower level of Consultants deployed than
we had previously anticipated and this, taken with current market conditions,
leads the Board to anticipate that the 2025 full year financial performance
may be below its previous expectations.

FDM is a robust and agile business, with a strong balance sheet and
experienced management team and Board, operating in fundamentally strong
markets. The Board remains confident that our business is well positioned to
return to growth as and when market conditions improve."

 

 

 

ENDS

For further information please contact:

 FDM Group

 Rod Flavell - Chief Executive Officer

 Mike McLaren - Chief Financial Officer                             Tel: +44 (0)20 3056 8240

 Mark Heather - Group Governance Director & Company Secretary
 Financial PR

 Nick Oborne                                                        Tel: +44 (0)7850 127526

 

Forward-Looking Statements

This trading update may contain statements which constitute 'forward-looking
statements'. Although the Group believes that the expectations reflected in
these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that
these expectations will prove to have been correct. Because these statements
involve risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from
those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Subject to any
requirement under the Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules or other
applicable legislation, regulation or rules, the Group does not undertake any
obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a
result of new information, future events or otherwise. Neither shareholders
nor prospective shareholders should place undue reliance on forward-looking
statements, which speak only as of the date of this Trading Update.

 

This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contact
rns@lseg.com (mailto:rns@lseg.com)
 or visit
www.rns.com (http://www.rns.com/)
.

RNS may use your IP address to confirm compliance with the terms and conditions, to analyse how you engage with the information contained in this communication, and to share such analysis on an anonymised basis with others as part of our commercial services. For further information about how RNS and the London Stock Exchange use the personal data you provide us, please see our
Privacy Policy (https://www.lseg.com/privacy-and-cookie-policy)
.   END  TSTBPMTTMTBTTLA