The global BPO business highlighted a 138% rise in EBITDA to £2.3m and a return to pre-tax and net profit, at £676,000 (2010: £1.7m loss) and £961,000 (2010: £1.7m loss) respectively, as well as a 27% reduction in net debt - to £6.7m, as evidence that it had "turned the corner" for the year to 31 March 2011.
In the directors report, group finance director Andrew Lipinski described the year as one of "consolidation followed by opportunity [for] significant expansion during 2011/12" and said that he expected the trend of improved financial performance to continue in the next financial year.
Turnover increased 1.8% to £95m, although sales were up 7% on a continuing basis, despite marginal declines in both UK and European revenue. As such, the increase in revenue was driven by strong overseas growth, with sales from the rest of world up 112% to £10.8m.
Meanwhile net debt was paid down from £9.1m to £6.7m, one of the lowest debt levels amongst its peers in the sector. Group chief executive Robert MacMillan said: "I think we did pretty well last year and much better than the rest of the market's done in terms of paying down debt and hitting profit."
The turnaround from HH's poor 2009/10 results was completed against a background of declining demand, surplus capacity and commodity level pricing driven by rapidly changing technology and the internet.
MacMillan said: "Last year we took the bad news on the chin, we cleared out [the problem] and we produced some really decent results and I think that if you look at some of the other companies out there, they can't afford to clear out the bad news in their businesses because they would just go bust."
MacMillan added that the company was now well-placed to take advantage of growth opportunities in the coming year, thanks to the strength of its global platform and recent contract wins, as well as ongoing investment in the firm's HHub IT platform, which HH spent £700,000 on in 2010/11 and has earmarked a further £800,000 investment in over the coming year.
Commenting on the recently announced acquisiton of Tag Worldwide by Williams Lea, MacMillan said that he expected the deal to be beneficial to HH's future success.
"What were two competitors have now become one," he said. "I think it will take [Tag] a while to integrate into the Williams Lea/Deutsche Post way of working and while I think it will be successful, the challenge will be how they work culturally together.
"It also opens up a number of opportunities for companies like ours to pick up business whilst they sort out how they're managing things and who's going to be running what and it opens up a gap in the market between the really big companies like them and Xerox and the rest but where the customer still needs a global solution and presence in all these markets."
