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Poland – Work Service reports strong growth and plans further regional expansion

01 September 2015

Work Service (WSE:WSE) the Polish staffing, RPO, and outsourcing company has reported revenues for the first half of 2015 ending 30 June of PLN 977.1 million (€236.3 million). An increase of 32.8% compared with PLN 735.9 million (€176.1 million) during the same period last year.

  H1 2015 H1 2014 Change
Revenue PLN 977.1 million PLN 735.9 million +32.8%
€236.3 million €176.1 million  
Gross Profit PLN 20.5 million PLN 23.4 million -12.6%
€4.9 million €5.6 million  
EBITDA PLN 38.5 million PLN 36.3 million +6.2%
€9.3 million €8.7 million  

However, profitability lagged behind revenue as gross profits decreased by 12.6% and EBITDA only increased by 6.2%. Net profit before one off costs was up 36.4% but taking into account a variety of expenses including foreign exchange effects of the rouble and acquisition costs of Antal and IT Kontrakt which amounted to PLN 11.79 million. Overall net profits fell by 32.14% to PLN 13.2 million compared to PLN 19.5 million in 1H 2014

Work Service claimed to have captured over 13% market share (by value) in the TOP-5 CEE region (Poland, Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) and fulfilled the company’s strategic goal to become the Central European leader two years ahead of its originally announced plan. During the third quarter, Work Service will draft a new three-year strategy, including further expansion in key foreign markets.

“This demonstrates our effectiveness in implementing the strategy, which resulted in the geographic expansion of our business and dynamic growth in the scale of operations. As this opens up entirely new opportunities, we are going to issue a new strategy and map out our growth up to 2018 already in this quarter“, said Tomasz Hanczarek, President of the Board..

According to the company’s financial statement; international sales accounted for 44% of total sales in H1 2015, up from 32% during the same period last year.

Broken down geographically, revenue during H1 2015 was as follows:


H1 2015 H1 2014 Change
Poland PLN 546.2 million PLN 498.6 million +9.5%
€132.1 million €119 million
Czech Republic PLN 35.9 million PLN 27.6 million +30%
€8.7 million €6.6 million
Slovakia PLN 32 million PLN 25.1 million +27.4%
€7.7 million €6 million
Germany PLN 159.4 million PLN 31.4 million +407.8%
€38.6 million €7.5 million
Russia PLN 38.1 million PLN 46.4 million -18%
€9.2 million €11.1 million
Romania PLN 1.134 million PLN 0.0 N/A
€0.3 million €0.0
Turkey PLN 3.9 million PLN 1.8 million +111.5%
€0.9 million €0.4 million
Hungary PLN 158.7 million PLN 104.8 million +51.4%
€38.4 million €25 million
UK PLN 1.8 million PLN 0.0 N/A
€0.4 million €0.0
Total Revenue PLN 977.1 million PLN 735.9 million +32.8%
€236.3 million €176.1 million

“Our primary goal is to build on our leadership position in the region to join the ranks of five largest employment agencies in Europe. To achieve this objective, we will expand our international business and actively enter new markets in France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The first step in this direction will be the technical Dual Listing of our shares on the London Stock Exchange, scheduled to take place in late 2015 or early 2016,” added Tomasz Hanczarek.

From January to June 2015, the Work Service Group pursued an intensive programme of integration of its operating entities across Europe. IT Kontrakt launched operations in five new markets, and Antal International began to offer services in Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. With these developments, the Group diversified its revenue sources geographically and launched sales to multinational blue chips. In the same report, the Group indicated that its entities are participating in over 30 tenders on a regional level, with potential total annual revenues of over EUR 50 million.

“With dynamic international expansion, we have become a reliable partner not only for local, but also for global players. Having become a regional leader, has finally opened up for us the opportunity to win contracts from the largest European and international corporations. This is a whole new chapter for our Group, which is expected to achieve even better performance in the second half of 2015, due to seasonal factors: the third and fourth quarters have consistently been the best in our financial reports.“ concluded Tomasz Misiak, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Work Service S.A.

In early trading today, the company’s share price increased by 1.8% to PLN 16.75 (€3.96), an increase of 9.52% compared with a year ago. Based on its current share price, the company has a market value of PLN 1.07 billion (€0.25 billion).