Trading update and Acquisition

THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONTAINS INSIDE INFORMATION FOR THE PURPOSES OF ARTICLE 7 OF THE MARKET ABUSE REGULATION (EU) 596/2014 AS IT FORMS PART OF UK DOMESTIC LAW BY VIRTUE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION (WITHDRAWAL) ACT 2018 ("MAR"), AND IS DISCLOSED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE COMPANY'S OBLIGATIONS UNDER ARTICLE 17 OF MAR. 

5 August 2025

Gattaca plc

("Gattaca" or the "Group")

Trading update and Acquisition

Solid performance at upper end of market expectations

Gattaca plc, the specialist staffing solutions business, today provides the following trading update for the year ended 31 July 2025 ("FY25").

FY25 Highlights

·      Group continuing Net Fee Income¹ ("NFI") expected to be £38.8m (FY24: £40.1m)

·      Contract NFI declined 2% YoY with growth in contractor numbers offset by a lower utilisation trend in holiday periods.  

·      Permanent NFI declined 1% YoY as the market has stabilised at subdued levels of demand.

·      Gattaca Projects SoW NFI was down 25% YoY as the strong H2 in FY24 was not repeated due to the impact of programme delays, as a result of the Strategic Defence Review.

·      Improved margin conversion, due to a focus on costs and improved productivity, will result in FY25 Group underlying Profit before Tax in the range of £3.1m to £3.3m (FY24: £2.9m), marginally above current guidance of £3m.

·      Statutory net cash at 31 July 2025 of £15.7m (31 July 2024: net cash of £20.7m, 31 January 2025: net cash of £16.8m) reflecting a slight extension of the working capital cycle coupled with cessation of the Group's invoice discounting facility.

·      Robust balance sheet, profitability and cash generation will support continued distributions under the Group's dividend policy, with a dividend to be declared at the forthcoming results.

Acquisition

Gattaca is also pleased to announce that it has acquired the entire issued share capital of Infosec People Limited ("Infosec") for an aggregate cash consideration of £2.1m, consisting of an initial payment of £1.5m with deferred consideration of up to £0.6m ("Deferred Consideration"). The Deferred Consideration is payable over the next four years, subject to minimum performance criteria being achieved by Infosec within each year.

Infosec is a specialist cyber security recruitment consultancy, based in Cheltenham, UK. Founded in 2009, the business works with clients across a variety of sectors providing cyber and information security specialists.

In the year to 31 March 2025, Infosec had net fee income of £1.5m, generating an adjusted operating profit of £0.4m and had net assets of £1.0m as at 31 March 2025.

Outlook

Whilst market conditions continue to be challenging, Gattaca remains focused on its core markets, continuing to improve consultant net fee productivity and the Group's back-office efficiency. As a result of continued demand and enhanced operational efficiencies, the Board expects the Company to perform in line with current market expectation of £4m underlying Profit before Tax for FY26.

Commenting, Matthew Wragg, Chief Executive Officer of Gattaca, said:

"We are pleased to report a solid FY25 performance, achieved through proactive management of the market challenges. With a great team we are starting to see the tangible results of our strategy and focus on markets where we see significant potential. We have retained our customer base, further strengthened our capability, improved our performance per head, continued to grow our contractor book and are seeing the results of our strategic investments.

"I am also very pleased to be welcoming new colleagues from Infosec to the Group. Cyber security has never been so relevant and the demand to protect national security, businesses, customers and our data will continue to grow. The addition of this expert capability to the Group will provide a bigger platform for our new colleagues to positively impact the market and enable us to further enhance our services to our extensive customer base across national critical infrastructure, defence and beyond."

1.     NFI is calculated as revenue less contractor payroll costs    

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