International recruiter Hydrogen has recorded reduced revenues but seen net fee income grow in the second half of the year, according to its audited preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2009.

The group’s results reveal:

·      Group revenue of £74.1m (2008: £96.2m)

·      Net fee income (NFI) of £16.8m (2008: £26.7m)

·      Profit before taxation and exceptional items of £0.3m (2008: £3.7m)

·      Days of sales outstanding 29 days (2008: 40 days)

·      12% NFI growth in second half on first half of 2009 

The group also saw net fee income in its engineering business grow by 50%, while net fee income in its Australian business also grew by 189%.

Ian Temple, executive chairman, says: “The group has delivered a good performance during what has been an exceptionally challenging year for trading across global recruitment markets.

“Against this difficult backdrop we have continued to improve our operational efficiency and align our cost base to our trading environment, while maintaining flexibility in our business model to respond to demand in more robust markets and sectors. In the second half of the year we grew NFI by 12% and returned to profitable growth.

“Since the year end we have continued to see signs of improvement in the UK, albeit against a low base in the prior year. We have also made further progress in exploiting international demand for specialist candidates and in January we were delighted to announce the opening of our Singapore office, our first in the Far-East.”