StepStone ASA, Europe's leader in online recruitment, today announced its financial results for the first quarter ending 31 March 2003. Highlights include:
- Completion of the transition to a market focused line of business structure
- Introduction of a single technology platform across the group
- Exclusive long term agreement with US-based Hire.com to provide Enterprise Recruitment Solutions to the European market
- Online Recruitment Division positive at EBITDA level
- Enterprise Recruitment Solutions Division achieves first sales of new OneStep product
- Q1 revenue of Ä5.3m
- Q1 FY2003 loss from operations (EBIT) of Ä2.0m, down from Ä2.5m a year ago
- Cash balance of Ä10.7m at 31 March 2003
- The first quarter of the current year has been a particularly active one for the company. Having now largely completed the transition to two lines of business, the company is now well positioned to address the distinct yet related requirements of its target markets.
The Online Recruitment Division (OLR) is focused on providing unparalleled results through StepStone's leading European public job sites, delivering effective exposure for job vacancies, access to one of Europe's leading databases of candidates and innovative support for the recruiter.
The Enterprise Recruitment Solutions (ERS) Division provides technology solutions to build and manage a customer's talent communities, managing their private online recruitment sites, whilst supporting the recruitment processes typical in larger businesses. Here StepStone offers two distinct solutions: the Hire.com product suite aimed at larger enterprises and OneStep for the SME market.
In support of this new structure, Marketing, Information Technology, Customer Services and Finance and Administration are now integrated company-wide to service both Divisions and all geographies.
The major task of introducing a single technology platform to power all of StepStone's public job sites across Europe has now been completed. The last country to move to this shared platform, Germany, went live in early April, said Colin Tenwick, CEO of StepStone. This will enable StepStone to bring new products and services to market more quickly and efficiently.
Online Recruitment Division
The Online Recruitment Division improved its position with a positive EBITDA of Ä202,000 compared with positive EBITDA of Ä150,000 in the previous quarter.
For the first quarter in over 12 months all four of the company's key operating metrics improved, reflecting the premier position that StepStone's online job sites hold in the European recruitment market. The number of CVs in StepStone's databases passed 1,000,000 for the first time, compared with 950,000 at 31 December 2002. Vacancies at 31st March 2003 were 22,597 against 16,823 at the close of the previous quarter whilst listings increased by nearly 1,500 to 12,215, compared to 10,752 at the end of 2002. User sessions climbed to 9.6 million for the quarter from 8.9 million in Q4 2002.
Customers signing new agreements or important renewals during the quarter included: Reebok Europe, McKinsey, S3, Cisco Systems, Saint Gobain, Sonera, Unilever, KPMG, Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Rehau, Solvay, ThyssenKrupp, Citibank Privatkunden and Ingram Micro.
An agreement was signed in early April with eQuest, a leading US job distribution company, which will sell StepStone's European reach to US-based international recruiters.
Enterprise Recruitment Solutions Division
The first quarter of the current financial year has been essentially one of laying the foundations for this new Division, which brings together two distinct recruitment solutions.
The first solution is the Hire.com product suite for which StepStone is the exclusive supplier in Europe. StepStone and Hire.com entered into a long-term relationship in February 2003 to bring the Hire.com products and services to the European market. As part of the relationship, Hire.com have seconded some of their key personnel to help spearhead the sales drive in Europe in conjunction with a newly appointed enterprise sales team. Encouraging interest is being seen from potential enterprise customers and partners alike.
The second solution is StepStone OneStep, which has evolved from the new StepStone pan-European technology platform. OneStep allows small and medium size companies to deploy simple yet effective privately branded online recruitment sites. The first sales of this product have been made in Belgium to Six Flags and Toyota Europe, and in Norway to Icopal.
Outlook
StepStone's Online Recruitment Division remains profitable. In the current challenging market environment the company is focused on consolidation of its market position, delivery of high quality customer service and increasing operational efficiency. The new Enterprise Recruitment Solutions Division is still in its early stages but is already achieving a positive reception in the market and some notable early successes.
StepStone Publishes Q1 2003 Results
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