It was another busy fortnight for corporate updates, with negatives and positives broadly balanced.

(Gloomy trading updates from Hays and Nestor Healthcare are covered in other pages in this issue).

l Penna Consulting saw its shares dive after it warned that profit for the year starting April 2006 would be marginally below that achieved in the last financial year. It blamed weakness in its career transition arm.

This division helps people who have been made redundant, with the fees being paid by the ex-employer. Penna said the weakness had arisen from the "current buoyant conditions in financial services and the absence of major rationalisation projects".

l Michael Page International reported a record gross profit for the second quarter of £87.4m. This is up 28% on the second quarter of 2005 and a sequential increase of 10% over the £79.1m for the first quarter of 2006. It brought gross profit in the first half of 2006 to £166.5m, up 30% on a year ago. The company said: "The UK saw no evidence of any slowdown and produced excellent performances from all of the specialist businesses."

The group said there were "tremendous opportunities for continuing the growth in Continental Europe. It has also opened an office in Mexico City.

Commercial property specialist Prime People made a statement to shareholders at its annual general meeting, less than a month after its results for the year to March. Chairman Robert Macdonald said net fee income in the first quarter of the new year was 18% up on last year. He pointed to strong demand for property professionals in the UK ahead of the introduction of Real Estate Investment Trusts (Reits). Last month, Prime opened an office in Hong Kong.

The Sheffield-based Public Recruitment Group (PRG), which specialises in the education, healthcare and social work sectors, made a pre-close trading statement ahead of its interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2006. PRG said it had had an "encouraging" first half.

It added that the conversion of net fee income to operating profit ratio has improved. PRG said its market share in the locum doctor market had grown, "albeit at the expected lower contracted margins".

Morson Group made its first trading statement since floating on the Alternative Investment Market in March. The firm supplies more than 7,000 white collar personnel to the aerospace and defence, nuclear and power, and rail industries.

It said trading in the first half of 2006 had been strong, with "the Group benefiting in particular from out-performance in its core aerospace and defence sub-sectors and continued buoyancy in the high growth rail market".

IT specialist Spring Group said its first-half results are expected to be in line with market expectations, with a return to profitability at the pre-tax level and improved cash flow compared to the corresponding period in 2005.

Richard Barfield, chief executive of Spring, said: "Spring's improved first half performance reflects the steady progress it has made since the restructuring and reorganisation carried out in the final quarter of 2005". The company will report the results on 3 August.