August 18, 2008
ONLINE employment agency Seek lifted its full year profit by 37 per cent, and says its confident of improving profitability further in the current year.
Seek today reported net profit for the 2008 financial year of $76.3 million, up from $55.5 million in the prior year.The company declared a final divident of 9.9 cents, making total dividends for 2008 of 18.6 cents, up from 7.7 cents and 13.7 cents respectively.
All dividends are fully franked.
Seek reported revenue in 2008 up 33.1 per cent to $211.488 million and earnings per share up 36 per cent from 19.6 cents in 2007 to 26.6 cents in 2008.
Earnings before income tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) lifted 37 per cent from $80.3 million to $109.8 million.
Seek's joint chief executive officer, Paul Bassat, said the company "remain(s) confident of growing our profitability in the current financial year''.
This would be driven, he said, by a continued migration of consumers from seeking jobs in print media to online, Seek's growing presence in new markets, improved yield and the continued growth of its Learning business''.
"Our focus on key drivers of growth remains consistent resulting in continued strong financial results,'' Mr Bassat said.
"Growth in the Australian and New Zealand employment business has been driven by ongoing migration from print to online, a growing presence in SME, Healthcare, Education and Government markets, improved yield and the introduction of product extensions through Standout & Premium Ads.
Mr Bassat said a record 52 per cent of job seekers now preferred to search for a job online, more than double the preference for newspapers.
"More than 77 per cent of job seekers' time is now spent on SEEK, and over the past 12 months we have increased job ad volumes by more than our two closest competitors combined.
Seek's other joint chief executive, Andrew Bassat, said had developed strong momentum in education and training domestically.
"With increased sales capability and new content partnerships, SEEK Learning had a strong second half, and with continued leverage of the SEEK brand we expect this momentum to continue,'' Paul Bassat said.
He said Seek sought "to aggressively pursue our strategy to look for other international opportunities''.
AAP