Empresaria Posts Strong Profit Growth Amid Strategic Reset After Challenging Year

Empresaria’s 2025 results are a proper mixed bag, but not in a lazy “some good, some bad” way. The underlying business improved more than the headline revenue number suggests, yet the reported accounts still show losses, rising debt and a clear admission that the previous strategy did not work.

For retail investors, the big takeaway is this: trading was tough, but management squeezed much better profit out of the business and has now hit reset on strategy. That matters because this is no longer just a results statement – it is also a public post-mortem on the old plan and a roadmap for what comes next.

Empresaria FY2025 results: profit growth was real, even if reported revenue fell

The headline numbers show revenue down 3% to £239.0 million and net fee income down 6% to £47.3 million. Net fee income is the key measure recruitment firms use to show income after direct placement costs, so it is usually a better guide than revenue alone.

But the more encouraging bit is that on a constant currency, like-for-like basis – meaning stripping out exchange rate movements and exited operations – net fee income was flat. More importantly, adjusted operating profit jumped 50% to £5.7 million and adjusted profit before tax rose 82% to £4.0 million.

Key figure	2025	2024	Change
Revenue	£239.0 million	£246.2 million	-3%
Net fee income	£47.3 million	£50.4 million	-6%
Adjusted operating profit	£5.7 million	£3.8 million	+50%
Adjusted profit before tax	£4.0 million	£2.2 million	+82%
Loss before tax	£(4.4) million	£(5.2) million	+15%
Adjusted net debt	£17.1 million	£15.3 million	Up £1.8 million

That kind of gap between adjusted and reported numbers is important. The adjusted performance says the engine is still running; the statutory loss says the repair bill is still large.

Offshore Services carried Empresaria while permanent hiring stayed weak

The star performer was clearly Offshore Services. Net fee income there rose 9% to £13.8 million, or 16% on a constant currency like-for-like basis, while adjusted operating profit climbed to £7.0 million from £5.8 million.

That business now makes up 29% of Group net fee income, up from 25% last year. It is also the main reason the Group could offset weakness elsewhere, especially in permanent recruitment, where net fee income fell 9% on a constant currency like-for-like basis.

Where Empresaria performed well and where it struggled

• Offshore Services: the standout growth driver, with strong demand in both the UK and US.
• US: net fee income rose 17% to £2.7 million, helped by a recovery in US healthcare.
• UK: revenue fell 16% to £18.8 million and net fee income dropped 11% to £3.9 million, although losses narrowed sharply.
• Non-core operations: net fee income fell 8% to £28.0 million and adjusted operating profit dropped 30% to £3.0 million.

The US story is interesting. Healthcare improved nicely and the newer US Professional operation grew fast, but the US IT business remained weak, with management explicitly pointing to AI replacing some IT roles. That is one of the more direct comments you will see in an RNS about structural pressure in a market.

So yes, there are encouraging pockets. But the wider recruitment market still looks soft, especially in Professional, IT and Commercial hiring.

Empresaria strategic reset: the Board has binned the old transformation plan

This is probably the most important part of the whole announcement. The new Board has formally ended the prior transformation strategy and gone back to a decentralised, multi-branded model from 1 January 2026.

That is not just a tweak. It is a fairly blunt admission that the previous centralised strategy, including the move toward a single-brand structure and the “Core” versus “Non-core” labels, made the business worse rather than better.

Chairman Joost Kreulen more or less says exactly that. The Board believes the old approach created complexity and diluted the entrepreneurial strengths that had historically driven Empresaria’s success.

My read is that this is painful but positive. Painful, because strategic U-turns usually mean time, money and management attention have been wasted. Positive, because recognising failure quickly is better than defending a bad plan for another two years.

What the new Empresaria strategy now focuses on

• Stabilising the business
• Eliminating loss-making activities
• Restoring financial discipline
• Reinstating regional accountability
• Targeting balanced, profitable growth rather than growth at all costs

That all sounds sensible. None of it is flashy, but when debt is elevated and the market is hard work, flashy is not what shareholders need.

Net debt, bank facilities and no dividend: the balance sheet still needs work

The weakest part of the update is the balance sheet. Adjusted net debt increased to £17.1 million from £15.3 million, while net assets fell sharply to £20.2 million from £31.4 million.

Management says the rise in debt was driven by dividends paid to minority interests, tax payments, foreign exchange losses and exceptional costs. Free cash flow did improve to £2.3 million from an outflow of £3.9 million, which is a step in the right direction, but not enough yet to make the debt issue disappear.

There are some reassuring points. Headroom was £5.4 million excluding invoice financing, all banking covenants were met, net debt to EBITDA was 2.6 times against a limit of less than 3.0 times, and interest cover was 4.7 times against a minimum of more than 3.0 times.

Better still, the £15.0 million revolving credit facility has been extended to October 2027. That extension matters because it gives management breathing room while it pushes through the reset.

Still, income investors will not like this one bit. No final dividend has been proposed, and the company says it had negative distributable reserves at 31 December 2025 due to impairment charges.

Goodwill impairment and exceptional costs show the clean-up is not finished

The statutory numbers are still ugly. Empresaria reported an operating loss of £2.7 million, a loss before tax of £4.4 million and a loss attributable to shareholders of £9.3 million.

A big part of that came from £5.3 million of goodwill impairment and £2.0 million of exceptional items. Goodwill impairment is an accounting write-down that says past acquisitions are now judged to be worth less than previously thought.

The exceptional costs included £0.9 million for former executive departures and Board changes, £0.7 million of legal and professional costs linked to aborted takeover offers, plus restructuring and failed strategy implementation costs. In plain English, shareholders are still paying for the mess left behind.

There is also a tax sting. The total tax charge was £3.2 million, and the adjusted effective tax rate was a very high 64%. That is because profits in some countries could not be offset by losses elsewhere, plus there were non-deductible costs and withholding taxes.

What the 2026 outlook means for Empresaria shareholders

The company is not pretending conditions have suddenly improved. It says the tough staffing environment has continued into 2026 and the outlook remains uncertain because of macroeconomic and global political risks.

Even so, the tone is more grounded than before. Management is talking about consistent profitable growth, strengthening the balance sheet, rebuilding shareholder confidence and investing more in Offshore Services – which is exactly where the best momentum already sits.

There was also a post year-end disposal of the Japanese business in April 2026, but the financial impact was not disclosed in these accounts. So investors should note it, but not guess at the benefit.

Overall, I would call this cautiously encouraging. The old strategy clearly failed, but the new Board has been refreshingly direct about that, underlying profitability improved sharply, and the bank extension removes one obvious near-term worry.

The catch is that Empresaria is not out of the woods. Debt is higher, the dividend is absent, impairments are still rolling through and much of the recovery case rests on stronger execution rather than stronger markets. If management can stabilise the weaker operations and keep growing Offshore Services, the shares may have recovery appeal. But this is still a turnaround story, not a finished one.