Empresaria Group plc Issues Interim Report

Empresaria Group plc has announced its Condensed consolidated interim report, for the six months ended 30 June 2011 1.

Results for the six months ended 30 June 2011:

Empresaria Group plc (“Empresaria” or the “Group”) has experienced a challenging first half of the year, particularly in Germany, the Group’s largest market, where new labour agreements had a material impact on gross margins. The Group continued to make progress in other regions, particularly in Asia where it experienced strong growth.

Highlights

- Revenue increased 1% to £105.2m (June 2010: £104.4m)

- Permanent revenue increased 26% and temporary staffing revenues decreased 1% year on year

- Net fee income/gross profit level with prior year at £22.4m

- International diversification with 65% of net fee income from outside the UK (June 2010: 67%)

- Adjusted profit before tax* of £1.2m (June 2010: £2.6m)

- Exceptional provision of £3.0m has been made for potential retrospective claims that may arise as a result of court rulings in Germany

- Loss before tax of £1.9m (June 2010: profit of £2.3m)

- Adjusted earnings per share# of 0.9p (June 2010: 1.9p)

- Net debt at period end of £8.5m (June 2010: £7.6m)

* adjusted to exclude amortisation of intangible assets, exceptional items and movements in the fair values of put and call options. # earnings per share is from continuing and discontinued operations

Chief Executive Miles Hunt said:

“Overall, Group performance in the period did not meet our expectations. Although we grew Revenue slightly, Net fee income was flat during the period, albeit with strong performances from individual companies, particularly within the Asia region. Investments in new start ups and office openings in Asia and Australia did impact on profitability during the period, as planned, but are all developing positively. The Group faced unexpected challenges in the period, particularly the impact of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and, of greater short term financial consequence, the adoption of new collective labour agreements in Germany following court rulings which required us to increase pay rates to temporary workers as well as incur substantial one-off legal costs.