Headhunting honcho
Coping with the fallout
Aside from wider political and social impact, ‘the market just fell off a cliff,’ recalls Hamill. ‘The banks stopped hiring and there was a knock-on effect in the corporate world. Between September 2001 and 2002, we were burning through cash and losing £400,000 a month. At one point we were down to just five or six weeks’ money, and our cash and share price were at an all-time low,’ he remembers.
As well as tight cash management, the key to surviving those dark days was, ‘very good communication with our investors. Thankfully, our customers started to come back. We had managed to successfully keep the company alive throughout the worst market in living memory.’ Institutional investors were impressed and haven’t hesitated to back Hamill’s strategy since.
Figures for 2002 reflected the woeful market conditions, with Imprint suffering losses of £1.2 million despite scoring top-line growth. But the company turned a corner in 2003, managing to post its first annual profits by taking a further share of recovering markets.
Calendar year 2004 saw Hamill preside over a 230 per cent profits push to £1.25 million on £7.9 million turnover, and, in a transformational 2005, pre-tax profits skyrocketed by 262 per cent to £4.5 million. Recent half-year figures showed that good times continue to roll, with profits powering north by 125 per cent to £4.2 million. The company’s terrific rates of organic growth have been supplemented by some canny strategic acquisitions.
Resurgence, strategy and model
Hamill has built Imprint into that ‘multi-tiered’ global recruiter he promised from day one, servicing blue-chips from Tesco and Vodafone, financial services giants Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, to Ernst & Young and Deloitte. Imprint’s array of brands – WoodHamill, Imprint Search & Selection, Accreate, ECHM, Morgan McKinley – means it can cross-fertilise clients between its brand and markets. Hamill says it undertakes detailed candidate research for its clients and is keen to increase its number of top-tier preferred supplier agreements.
‘Our business model is all about having more than one brand so we can have greater penetration into our clients’ world. I believe that we are the only one doing top-to-tail recruitment with a shared service platform – that is, common shared service functions and systems,’ he boasts. This pride is justifiable given Imprint’s staggering recent financial success. Indeed, the share price has rocketed by more than 700 per cent since the summer of 2003, valuing the business at £110 million, a figure that could soon double.
‘We think our model will support a business twice the current size. We already have good organic growth rates, but we want to grow our market value to £200 million over the next six months. In order to do that, we are looking for a substantial acquisition,’ Hamill teases. Imprint already operates in Asia (Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong), and beyond the UK into Europe, and he says the French and German markets have strategic appeal.
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Vital statistics
Name: Brian Hamill
Title: Chief executive, Imprint Plc
Status: Married with three children
Biggest regret? ‘Opening an Imprint office out in Shanghai in 2003 after I was lured by the Chinese dream. We moved too early as it turned out and I had to close it down’
Business hero? ‘Warren Buffett, the down-to-earth American investor, businessman and philanthropist’
Admired sector peer? ‘Michael Page International – it’s the Coca Cola of international professional staffing, and the company has never really dropped the ball’
Rule of thumb? ‘In my opinion, you have to have integrity in business. If you are lacking in it, you are stuffed. People need to trust you. If they don’t, you have a problem’