Newcastle’s Frank Recruitment saw the first revenue fall in its history as the coronavirus pandemic put the brakes on hiring around the world.
The tech recruitment company - which has regularly represented the region on national growth lists - opted to maintain staffing levels and take a loss during the pandemic as it seeks to take advantage of economies bouncing back from various coronavirus lockdowns.
Accounts for the firm have been released for the year ending November 30, 2019, which show revenue rising from £227.9m to £297.1m, though operating profit fell slightly to £14.2m as the firm invested in its global expansion.
But the accounts also detail how the downturn in the global economy after the year end led to the company’s first fall in revenues.
Frank said it had been making a ‘small operating loss’ since May, but it had taken the decision to retain staff and had seen profitability return as the economy recovers.
Chairman and CEO James Lloyd-Townshend said: “The pandemic impacted businesses across every industry, and understandably, hiring wasn’t a top priority for most companies. After years of sustained growth, our revenues fell for the first time in our history, but working in the cloud technology industry, we knew that a decline would be short-lived.
“Take-up of cloud products and services during Covid-19 has been enormous. The likes of Microsoft and AWS have seen massive spikes in revenue as businesses look to equip themselves with the tools they need to stay connected during this challenging period. That will inevitably result in companies needing talent that can power those digital projects.
“We had confidence that things would bounce back, and that’s why we decided to retain as many of our staff as possible.
"Like many organisations, we had to make tough choices and ask a lot from our workforce, but I believe we made the right move by not reactively cutting our headcount as much as perhaps we could have done.”
Frank Recruitment was formed in Newcastle in 2006 as a recruitment firm for specialised technology workers.
Equity group TPG Growth, which has also backed Airbnb, Uber and Spotify, invested in the group in 2016 and it now has 21 offices around the world after the opening of a site in Geneva, Switzerland, last month.
The company now employs almost 2,000 people in nine different countries with its headquarters at the St Nicholas Buildings in Newcastle city centre.
