Kent-based HR Go is looking to float on the Alternative Investment Market, a move that would see the Parkinson family cut its 96% stake.

The company is currently listed on OFEX. Chairman Jack Parkinson told Recruiter: “If outside investors are to take a stake, we want that to happen on terms acceptable to us, not because we have to.”
Parkinson was speaking just after HR Go released its annual results. The firm was dragged into the red by one-off costs in 2005 and said it would suffer a further charge in 2006 due to pension costs.

Parkinson’s mother started the company in 1957. Parkinson, 61, said he had given some thought to retiring and that HR Go’s senior management was mostly made up of people from outside the family.
Turnover for HR Go was £76.8m in 2005, up from £69.3m in 2004. The pre-tax loss was £122,000, against a profit of £449,000 in 2004. Parkinson aims to build the business up to a turnover of £100m.
He said the IT division had a “good year”, with turnover and operating profit up. “But elsewhere results were below expectations,” Parkinson admitted. “Financial services has become very competitive. I don’t know the specific reasons why.”

Since the year-end, HR Go has invested in three start-ups. It has also acquired the trades of two companies, one operating in Suffolk and the other in Kent.
Parkinson said trading so far in 2006 was in line with expectations and “appears on track for an improved financial performance”.

HR Go’s brands include commercial and office chain PSB Recruitment, industrial and logistics chain Staffsign, Drivers Elite, executive firm Exetec and Solihull-based rec-to-rec firm Oliver Grace.
HR Go owns at least 51% of the businesses. Parkinson said: “We work more like a partnership. We take some of the profit if they’re making a profit, but it’s not like a franchise where they cream off a percentage of the revenue, even if there’s no profit.”