2021 results

HeadFirst Group is proud to present its gross invoice value of € 1.547 billion (2020: € 1.520 billion), a particularly impressive achievement given that the year was still impacted by lockdowns due to the pandemic. We would not have been able to achieve this great result without our amazing and passionate employees, loyal clients, committed partners, suppliers and professionals.

We saw a strong start to 2021, with continued growth in demand for our services, following a strong fourth quarter in 2020. Consequently, growth rates slowed down slightly in the last quarter due to tougher comparisons. There were some clear differences between the various industries we serve. While some industries stabilised after the initial drop in demand, others showed an increased demand for our services, even beyond the pre-pandemic level. This was especially the case for our public sector customers. The resilience of our business model, thanks to our portfolio mix and our strong presence in the niche of highly skilled professionals, including many IT professionals, led to a limited impact of the pandemic on our growth. Over the year, revenue growth was in line with 2020 at 3%. Gross profit increased by 7%, following significant growth in the uptake of our matchmaking proposition, which has a high added value. We managed to realise a strong underlying EBITDA performance, with EBITDA increasing 11% following the realisation of efficiency gains.

We continued to invest in our organisation in order to further improve our service levels to customers, to further optimise our processes, and to implement innovative solutions such as Robotic Process Automation, which will enable more efficient ways of working and result in an increased performance in 2022. In 2021, we also completed the migration of the Between systems to our platform Select in order to further capitalise on our strategy of becoming the leading platform in the Netherlands. We are proud to have a solid financial position, with a strong equity of € 140 million and a solvency of 29%. This qualifies as solid for our type of business, which has a large amount of current assets and liabilities going through the books.

We continued to retain business by contract renewals and by winning further tenders in 2021, demonstrating our clients’ appreciation of our services and providing us with a solid outlook at the start of 2022. Gross invoice value Gross profit EBITDA Equity Solvency 2021 2020 Change 1,547 1,520 3% 41 40 7% 24 22 11% 140 139 1% 29% 29% -