As presaged in January (see here), AIM-listed IT recruitment-cum-consultancy company, ReThink Group, turned in a respectable result for 2011, with revenues up 40% to £78.9m (30% organic) and operating margins 40bps higher at 2.6%.
Most of the growth in absolute terms came from RTG’s traditional recruitment activities, which are still primarily UK based but expanding overseas. But RTG’s fastest growing units were its Talent Management (recruitment process outsourcing) division, which grew revenues by 86% to £19.9m and its Technology Services (BI/ECM consultancy) division, where revenues grew by 61% to £3.8m.
It’s the Technology Services (TS) division in which RTG’s Aiimi products and services propositions reside (see ReThink aiming high with Aiimi). RTG is in effect defocusing the Aiimi ‘brand’ and presenting TS as a BI/ECM consultancy/VAR for Open Text and Microstrategy as well as its own IP.
But I still can’t get hugely excited about running a consultancy alongside a recruitment firm (as regular readers know), although at the moment the combo is not doing RTG too much harm (TS is slightly margin dilutive). However, TS is not doing RTG any favours on its valuation either, which is absolutely par for the course for these sorts of mixed businesses. Indeed RTG’s share price is back to 10p, precisely where it started when it IPO’d in June 2008.