Recruitment firm NES today shrugged off the UK economic slowdown with record annual profits after stepping up its global expansion.
Altrincham-based NES beat its own forecasts with a 24 per cent surge in profits for the year to October 31, from £9.7m to £12m.
Revenues climbed 16 per cent, from £217.1m to £252.8m. NES opened offices in China, India and Nigeria and since the year end has begun operations in Angola, Australia, Canada, United States and Papua New Guinea.
It now has 26 offices in 16 countries and is looking to establish a presence in Kuwait, Libya, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand this year.
The company, led by chief executive Neil Tregarthen, expects to recruit 120 staff this year, taking employee numbers to more than 460.
It is forecasting revenues of around £285m and profits of £13.5m for 2008-09.
NES provides technical and engineering staff on permanent and temporary contracts to the oil and gas, infrastructure, rail, power and life sciences and IT sectors. It supplies more than 3,000 white collar staff each year to customers including Shell, BP, Siemens, GE, Amec, Total, Exxon Mobil and Qatar Gas.
The UK saw a modest rise in sales last year to £150.2m but overseas revenues rocketed from £71m to £102.6m, fuelled by new branches, growth in emerging economies such as the UAE, Malaysia and Nigeria, and increasing workforce globalisation, where people move from project to project and country to country.
"The engine room of our growth has been our global business," said Mr Tregarthen.
"Things have got tougher in the UK, reflecting the slowdown in the economy, but we have increased our penetration in our chosen markets and sectors overseas.
"Last year I said our strategy was to be ever more global and specialist. Our performance in 2008 provided further evidence that this strategy is correct and our increasing portfolio, strength of geography and sectors positions us well to react to changes in global markets brought about by current economic uncertainty."
Last year's profits would have been higher still but for an investment of more than £5m to expand the business.
Since the year end, it has added offices in Leeds and London's East End, where it hopes to benefit from work ahead of the 2012 Olympics.
NES was established as Northenden Engineering Services in 1978 by Geoff Lloyd and Bryan Sullivan. It was acquired by private equity outfit Graphite Capital in September 2006.
This article was first published in the Manchester Evening News, 6 January 2009.
To download an announcement of the results for the year ended 31 October 2008 in PDF format, click HERE
