It’s been a landmark week in the life of the FTSE 250. The UK’s second-tier share index has soared on renewed risk appetite and on Thursday closed at record highs close to 22,250 points. It’s settled back in end-of-week business as investors have paused for breath, but some FTSE 250 companies have continued charging.
Take PageGroup (LSE: PAGE) for instance. Prices of the recruitment giant sprang to their highest since September 2018 at 556p per share earlier in Friday trading. While they’ve pared gains slightly the PageGroup share price still remains nearly 10% higher on the day.
Demand for the UK share has surged following the release of first-quarter trading numbers. Here are the key points.
A fast FTSE 250 improver
PageGroup announced that gross profits in the first three months of 2021 rose 2% (at constant currencies) year-on-year to £184.2m. The business said that it has witnessed “monthly sequential improvement through the quarter” too, a trend that goes all the way back to last May.
Consequently, gross profits last month soared 31% from March 2021’s levels. They were down just 2% from the first quarter of 2019 too. This is in contrast to the annual drops of 13% and 10% the FTSE 250 share reported in January and February respectively.
Steve Ingham, PageGroup chief executive noted that “this noticeable improvement in March was seen throughout the group and was achieved despite the backdrop of continued and increasing restrictions or lockdowns in many of our markets.” Indeed, the company enjoyed record performances in March in Germany, Italy, Spain and South-East Asia.
Strength across PageGroup
It said that gross profits in its ‘Large, High Potential Markets’ rose 10% at stable exchange rates in the three months to March. These territories account for more than a third of profits at group level.
In its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) markets, gross profits were up 3.6% at constant currencies. In its key French and German markets, profits fell 7% and rose 15% respectively. Meanwhile, gross profits in Asia Pacific leapt 15.3% in the first quarter, led by a strong performance in China were they exploded 45%.
Performances elsewhere weren’t nearly as impressive, but this couldn’t derail gross profit growth at group level. A 9% profits reversal in the US at constant exchange rates caused total profits for The Americas to drop 4.3%. And in the UK profits dropped by a meaty 11% from the same 2020 quarter.
Cautiously optimistic
Looking ahead, Ingham said that “there continues to be a high degree of global macro-economic uncertainty as Covid-19 remains a significant issue and lockdowns have returned in a number of [our] markets.”
But he added that “the strength of our performance in quarter one, and notably in March, has increased confidence in our outlook for the year.” The business now expects full-year operating profit to range between £90m and £100m in 2021.
