According to the technical recruiter’s audited results for the year ended 31 December 2017, group revenue is £71.7m, up from £67.9m in 2016, with profit before tax of £1.3m up from £1.1m and earnings per share of 8.06p, an increase from 5.8p the previous year.

Across its businesses, ATA managed to maintain gross profit levels and increased its contribution to the group despite the difficult trading conditions experienced in UK technical and engineering recruitment markets.

The group’s Ganymede business continued to deliver on its core contract with Network Rail, and its energy division secured a new long-term, high-value contract with SSE to supply dual fuel meter installers for its smart-meter rollout programme that began in November 2017. The group did note, however, that the collapse of construction giant Carillion earlier this year had had an impact on the business, but due to the group’s financial diligence process, this was kept both manageable and within its internal debt cap.

The group’s GSS division won a new overseas contract and grew its existing core contract, significantly increasing its contribution to group for 2017.

Commenting on the results Andy Pendlebury, CEO pointed to a “very successful” year for RTC: “I believe our success demonstrates that our business model of building and investing in independent and complementary subsidiary businesses is both robust and capable of delivering long-term value to our shareholders. 

“In addition to our incremental organic growth plan, the board now believes the time is right for RTC to pursue a transformational acquisition plan. During 2018 we will continue the process of identifying complementary organisations that offer a broad range of consolidatory and diversification opportunities for our group to integrate into and alongside our existing subsidiary businesses."

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