Hays PLC

LSE:HAS

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q4

[Operator]

Hello, and welcome to the Hays Q4 Conference Call. My name is Molly, and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. Please note that this call is being recorded [Operator Instructions]. I will now hand you over to David Phillips to begin today's conference. Thank you.

[David Ian Phillips, Head of Investor Relations]

Thanks, Molly, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Hays quarterly update call for the 3 months ended 30th June 2021, the fourth quarter of our '21 financial year. I'm David Phillips, Head of Investor Relations; and I'm here with Paul Venables, Group Finance Director. Before we begin, please be aware that this call is being recorded with the recording accessible using the number and code provided in the release. Please also be aware that our discussions may contain forward-looking statements that are based on current expectations or beliefs as well as assumptions on future events. There are risk factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such statements. Hays disclaims any intention or obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements that have been made during this call regardless of whether these statements are affected as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. I'll now hand you over to Paul.

[Paul Venables, Group Finance Director & Executive Director]

Thank you, David. Good morning, everybody, and thanks for joining us. I'll present highlights of today's update, cover key themes and discuss regional performances before taking any questions. And as usual, all net fee growth percentages are on a like-for-like basis versus prior year, unless stated otherwise. Performance overview. Net fees were up 39% with all regions delivering a sharp rebound in fees, particularly in Perm, up 67%. There were no working day adjustments in the period, but currency translation had a negative impact, decreasing headline net fees by 3%.I'd highlight the following key features: one, trading in all regions improved through the quarter, and we saw good sequential fee growth. And encouragingly, June delivered our highest period of fees since the start of the pandemic. Two, Perm and Temp fees increased by 67% and 24%, respectively. In Perm, which represents 42% of fees, activity continued to rebound strongly. In Temp, as observed in Q3, in addition to volume growth, we've seen lengthening at average durations of assignments and an increase in the average hours worked per temp. This is in part due to historically low temp vacation and sickness levels. Three, our largest market of Germany performed strongly, driven by contracting where we now have record contracting numbers for this time of year. The U.K. saw continued sequential growth, especially in Perm. And in ANZ, momentum accelerated through the quarter, particularly in permanent recruitment. Rest of the World improved across all subregions, including 9 all-time record quarterly performances, including the strategically important markets of China and the U.S.Four, comparing Q4 FY '21 with Q4 FY '19, fees in the quarter were 8% lower, and average consultant headcount was 10% below Q4 FY '19. Five, consultant productivity continued at record levels. And given our confidence in the sustainability of the recovery, we increased our consultant headcount by 420 people or 6% in the quarter to drive further fee growth in FY '22 and beyond, and more on that later. Sixth, our cost base increased over the quarter to GBP 71 million per period, primarily driven by increase in consultant headcount, higher consultant commissions in line with net fees and our strategic growth investments.Seven, as a result of the improved net fee performance and continued good cost control, group operating profit for FY '21 is now expected to be GBP 95 million, which is ahead of current market expectations.And eight, cash performance was again excellent, and we ended the quarter with net cash of GBP 410 million. And I will now comment on the performance of each division in more detail. ANZ. Our ANZ division, which is 18% of group net fees, increased by 28%, with momentum accelerating through the quarter. Fees are down 7% versus Q4 FY '19. Perm, which is 35% of ANZ fees, was up an excellent 114%. And our Temp business, which faced a tough growth comparator a year ago, which included some one-off contract wins at the start of the pandemic, increased by 5%. The private sector, which represents 65% of fees, increased by 39%, whilst public sector grew by 10%.Australia increased by 23%. In New South Wales and Victoria, together 53% of our Australian business, net fees increased by 26% and 27%, respectively. South Australia was better still, up 37%, with Queensland up 28%; Western Australia, 24%; and ACT, 7%. At the specialism level, Construction & Property, our largest business in Australia, grew by 22%. IT, our second largest specialism, and HTS, both of which were resilient a year ago, increased by 14% and 11%, respectively.And looking at the larger specialisms that were hit hard a year ago, we saw a very strong rebound, with Accountancy & Finance and Office Support up 54%; and HR, an excellent 62%. And finally, our smaller specialisms, which represents about 21% of the business, were collectively up 10%. New Zealand, which is 7% of ANZ fees, increased by an excellent 123% with improving momentum through the quarter. And consultant headcount in ANZ increased by 8% in the quarter and by 17% year-on-year. Germany. Germany, our largest business at 26% of group fees, reported good sequential fee growth through the quarter with net fees up 38%. Business confidence continued to improve with increased client investments, especially in contracting, and fees are down 9% versus Q4 FY '19.Our largest specialism of IT grew by 17%; whilst Engineering, our second largest and which was hit very hard in the initial lockdown in 2020, was up 74%. Accountancy & Finance and Construction & Property increased by 26% and 29%, respectively, whilst Life Sciences performed even stronger, up 63%. Our Contracting business, which represents 54% of German fees and was relatively robust in Q4 FY '20, improved through the quarter and fees increased by 6%. And it's pleasing to note that in June, we now have record levels of contractors for this time of year. Temp net fees, which was severely hit by the lockdown in Q4 FY '20, continued to improve and increased by 230%. Excluding the significant underutilization and severance costs of temps a year ago, underlying Temp fees increased by 20%. Average Temp volumes continued to gradually improve, and we saw very high levels of temp utilization and record hours per temp worked, helped by low vacation and sickness levels, some of which will clearly reverse in the coming months. But despite the rebound, Temp fees remained significantly lower than Q4 FY '19 due primarily to the historic high exposure to the automotive sector. Perm, which is 17% of fees, increased by 33%. Our German public sector business, which is 14% of German fees, was up 28%. And consultant headcount increased by 1% in the quarter and 4% year-on-year. United Kingdom & Ireland. The U.K. & Ireland, 22% of group net fees, grew by 48%, led by a strong Perm performance, up 94%. Temp, which is 60% of the business, increased by 27%. Fees are down 15% versus Q4 FY '19. Fees in the private sector grew by 58%, with the public sector up 31%. Most regions traded broadly in line with the overall business, except the North West, East of England and the Midlands, which grew by 101%, 70% and 63%, respectively. Our largest U.K. region of London grew by 38%, and Ireland increased by 56%.At the specialism level, we saw excellent growth in IT, up 66%, and a continued strong rebound in specialisms which were heavily impacted by the pandemic a year ago, with HR and Education, which grew the fastest, up 111% and 82%, respectively, and also Accountancy & Finance and Construction & Property, up 71% and 63%.Our large Corporate Accounts business grew by 3%, and Life Sciences declined by 9% against tough growth comparators resulting with one-off contract wins in Q4 FY '20. If you remember, a year ago, our Life Science business grew by 25% in this quarter. Consultant headcount increased by 7% in the quarter, but declined by 4% year-on-year.Rest of the World, comprising 28 countries and 34% of group net fees, grew by 41%. Perm, which represents 66% of Rest of the World fees, increased by 56%, with Temp up 19%. And fees are down 2% versus Q4 FY '19. In Europe ex-Germany, fees increased by 41%. And our largest Rest of the World country of France was up 55%, whilst Spain and Italy increased by 83% and 74%, respectively. Belgium increased by 35%, Poland by 32% and Switzerland by 11%, a record performance against a resilient quarter in the prior year. The Americas grew by 56%, including the U.S., our second largest Rest of the World country, which is up by 55% and produced a record quarter. Momentum in Canada improved with fees up 49%. And LatAm grew by 78%, including Brazil, up an excellent 126%.In Asia, our fees increased by 25%. And China, our third largest Rest of the World country, grew by 33%, with Mainland China producing a record quarter and, again, significantly outperforming Hong Kong. Malaysia and Singapore were also strong at 56% and 38%, respectively, although Japan had a tough quarter, down 3%. And consultant headcount was up 8% in the quarter and 7% year-on-year. Cash flow and balance sheet. Cash collection continued to be excellent, and we delivered a strong cash performance in the quarter with net cash at 30th of June of GBP 410 million. And as a reminder, all short-term tax deferrals have been paid in full by the end of Q3 FY '21. Current trading and guidance. I'd make the following points: one, we enter FY '22 with positive trading momentum and have significantly invested in consultant headcount in Q4 to further capitalize on strong end markets and rising business confidence.Two, our Strategic Growth Investment program, formerly known as Return to Growth, is performing well. We invested GBP 15 million in FY '21, including GBP 11 million in half 2, and anticipate GBP 20 million further net investment in SGI projects in FY '22. Alistair will cover these in detail at the prelims, and we are very confident that these investments will accelerate our growth in the medium term. Three, having reported historically high consultant productivity levels in Q3, productivity remained very strong in Q4, driven by strong increase in fees, and further material growth in FY '22 and beyond will increasingly be driven by additional consultant headcount. In addition to the 420 consultants or 6% we added in Q4, we expect to increase consultant headcount by a similar number in Q1 FY '22 across our key specialisms and Strategic Growth Investment projects. Four, our exit periodic cost base is GBP 71 million, which looking forward will increase in line with headcount and other areas of investment and with increasing commissions proportionately in line with fees. And finally, non-payroll costs will modestly increase as business fully reopens and some limited travel restarts. Five, exchange rate movements remain a material sensitivity for the group's reported results. The strengthening of sterling versus the euro, Aussie dollar, U.S. and Japan is likely to act as a headwind to operating profit in FY '22. If we retranslate our FY '21 operating profit guidance of GBP 95 million at today's exchange rates, we'd see a GBP 4 million decrease in FY '21 group operating profit. And clearly, with this, we'll have a much larger impact on FY '22 as group operating profit increases. So in conclusion, the improvements in trading and our financial strength put us in a strong position to deliver substantial profit growth in FY '22 and beyond while significantly investing in for the future, and we set out some of those investments today. We will also look forward to resuming dividend payments to shareholders in August, as we outlined at the interims, and we're clearly in a very strong financial position. There are many opportunities to build much bigger businesses, and we're firmly focused on positioning Hays as a clear market leader in the most attractive long-term sectors and geographies. I'll now hand you back to the administrator, and we're happy to take your questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question today comes from the line of Matthew Lloyd calling from HSBC.

[Matthew Lloyd, Head of United Kingdom Small and Mid]

A couple of questions from me. One, I was interested in what the sort of relative growth rate of SME customers were versus larger ones. The last cycle, some of the data suggest SMEs were materially lower amount of hiring in the market generally than they had been in previous cycles, and I've heard that, that might be changing.And the second question, given Zoom interviews, hiring from broader geographies, all of the sort of things that are going on in some of the markets, do you think that the business can be more efficient to the new normal efficiency which might be higher?

[Paul Venables, Group Finance Director & Executive Director]

Good questions, Matthew. And I think the first one is quite an opportunity in these results, and not just in our results, but I think across the whole of the industry. I think if we went back 2 quarters ago, so if we go back to the end of 2020, there's no doubt, first of all, in the pandemic itself, it was the SME sector that was hit the hardest, and you could see that in our results very clearly. Then in the first phase of recovery and if we call out the quarter to September, we then clearly accelerated going into Christmas.Most of the initial rebound was in larger corporates because at that point, they knew what financial position they were in. They knew whether they could invest, and larger corporates tended to get back on the front foot and invest early. What is very different over the last 2 quarters and I think really in March, March was quite a seminal month, but I think March across April, May and June, I think your point is correct, actually, the largest investment has been in the SME sector.And why I think that's interesting and why, of course, this recovery period is very different versus previous ones, I think if we think through back to 2008 or '09, if we're prepared to be that kind of frightened and go back to that point when there was a banking crash, I think you had most SMEs are still very concerned. You don't have austerity in a number of countries, including the U.K., whereas this time, I think we're in a very different set of circumstances.And across the board, if you look at our business, actually, it is the markets such as London where we've had strong growth. It wasn't hit as hard a year ago. We've had very strong growth. But actually, growth has been greater outside of London. And if I look actually within the regions and look at the individual cities and towns, the growth has been larger in the smaller towns. And of course, that is much more driven by SME.So if I use the U.K. as an example, if the U.K. growth was 48%, I actually think, Matthew, that the SME growth was definitely 60% or greater. So I think what we are seeing is, clearly, there are certain sectors which are still in very difficult circumstances. But actually, for most recruitment companies, certainly in the professional space, we're not -- we didn't do much in those areas to start with, and we're not doing much now. So I think the more broader economy is in a much stronger position. And I think if you look at our business, things like IT and Life Sciences, we're already back above 2019 levels. And a lot of that growth is actually in smaller clients because for most companies around the world, the first area they decide to invest in is kind of greater efficiencies, information, tech market offerings because, of course, most companies have had to radically change their market offering as they've gone through this downturn. There's therefore a lot more investment in go-to-market channels, and I think that naturally leads into the IT sector. And that's across all companies. And I think we're aware of SMEs investing in the most. I think it's a replenishment of roles that they didn't fill, and that's -- you can see A&F and everything else. But I think real incremental investment is pretty much all in the IT sector. And then on your point about, can we get back to higher levels of productivity over time? I think that's to be determined yet, Matthew. I think we've all got to be a little bit careful about media statements about where the world will be in 1, 2 or 5 years. If I knew that, I probably wouldn't be doing this role. And you probably wouldn't be doing...

[Matthew Lloyd, Head of United Kingdom Small and Mid]

[ It's probably outside the presumptive ] VIX futures from a beach in the Caribbean.

[Paul Venables, Group Finance Director & Executive Director]

Correct. And we'd be asked another season to get holders and be watching all the games.

[Matthew Lloyd, Head of United Kingdom Small and Mid]

Exactly...

[Paul Venables, Group Finance Director & Executive Director]

But we're not in that position. I think what is true is, first of all, your comment about the Zoom part of it. And the comment about -- if you look at most companies now and the policies they're talking about in return to work and the fact there's going to be hybrid, then that obviously, as we discussed last time, I think you asked me this question last time, is I think that increases the geographic pool for candidates. And I think that is a real positive because there's not the expectation that everybody will be in the office all the time. People may well be in the office 50% of the time. Who knows really in the longer term? But I think that gives an opportunity for a greater -- a broader candidate pool. And I think the other part of it is, as you well know, we're in a heavy school, short market now. And I think pretty much any role in excess of GBP 40,000 to GBP 50,000 is very skill short. And therefore, candidates have quite a bit of choice. And whilst candidates may not be perfectly certain what right mix they want between home and office because actually a lot of people want to be surrounded by people and working by people for the energy and the innovation that brings, but they absolutely know that they want to be slacking into London all of the time.So I think those candidates have got greater power because it's a candidate shop market. It's a very hot market, and therefore, they can be a little bit more demanding. So I think all of that suggests that the candidate core becomes broader and by the very nature, therefore, there's more career opportunities for those candidates. And recruitment companies like Hays can put more opportunities in front of those individual candidates, not all of which has to be you have to go to the largest capital city anywhere around the world. So I think all of that are positives for productivity.I think the harder part is we've all got to be a bit -- at the moment, productivity is higher because we reduced our associate pool 15 months ago like most recruitment companies. And up until Christmas, we've been very modest in hiring. We'd hired a number of more experienced hires, but we haven't really gone back full four on new hiring for associate consultants. Now we need to do that because we need a larger capacity pool to make sure that we are driving material sequential fee growth when we get into '23.And of course, all of us are in a race back to peak profitability and beyond, and we set our targets out years ago. We will clearly, at some point, do an Investor Day. And therefore, at the moment, we're in invest mode. That, by its very nature, of course, suppresses profitability a bit. Certainly, we can make more money in '22 than we will do by increasing our consultant headcount. And I think we set that stall out today. And the strategic growth parts are more on the future and positioning us really well for the future rather than maximizing in a year or 2. But what I do think is possible is I see no reason why consultant productivity will be lower in the new world. There are clearly some opportunities to improve it. And then when we get back this -- if we classify FY '22 as a bit of a transition year, I think when we get back beyond that, of course, there's also some big cost opportunities because there's no way companies can go back to the level of flying that we're doing and traveling and everything else and hit their green targets.And we also see real opportunities to drive some efficiencies. But those projects, Matthew, that, again, were set out at the right time are going to take us a few years to deliver. But I think there's some real opportunities to improve margins over time. Where exactly that comes from, I think time will tell. But I think it is both a strong market today. I think the next few years feel to me to be very encouraging because quite uniquely, we're coming out of a downturn where governments aren't cutting money.And both of us are reasonably old, certainly older than most of the people on this call, and we've been through several degrees of austerity. And therefore, this time, none of that is there, and there's going to be significant investment in green tech, et cetera. And therefore, we're going to be on the front foot investing into that. So our focus is on -- absolutely, there will be a strong rebound in '22, but our focus is more on '23 and beyond. But the integral part of the long-term story is going to be productivity, both consultants and non-consultants.

[Matthew Lloyd, Head of United Kingdom Small and Mid]

And of course, you've got to invest in headcount as well. I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't, i.e., you want to grow the business. I was just interested in some of the underlying.

[Operator]

The next question comes from the line of Hans Pluijgers calling from Kepler.

[Hans Pluijgers, Head of Research of Benelux]

A few questions from my side. First of all, if you look at your development compared to Q4 2019, you already indicated at group level and the different geographies. But if you look at, let's say, Perm versus Temp, a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, I believe that Perm is doing slightly better than Temp on average. My quick estimate is that Perm is about down 6% compared to Q4 2019 and Temp around 8% to 9%. Is that a fair estimate from my side? Could you give some feeling on that?And secondly, if you look at June, can you give some feeling how, let's say, that developed compared to Q4 2019? Then secondly, on the drop-through rate, could you give some feeling what it was in Q4 of this year -- or sorry, of full year '21?And last question is on, again, also developments for June. If you look -- you said already that activity levels was again at the good levels. But if you look at KPIs, especially the indication for Q1, could you give some feeling, let's say, how it developed sequentially through the quarter as also KPIs were clearly up through the quarter? So looking at new vacancies and that kind of things, could you give some feeling on that?

[Paul Venables, Group Finance Director & Executive Director]

Hans, I think the one thing I can be certain of is I won't have remembered all of the questions and, therefore, won't answer. So please, if you've got your...

[Hans Pluijgers, Head of Research of Benelux]

Sorry about that.

[Paul Venables, Group Finance Director & Executive Director]

Please do come back because you've just thrown so much at me, I don't think I can possibly cover all of them. Let me start off with the Perm versus Temp, there's not a massive difference, Hans. So we -- had there been a big difference, we would have stated it. And actually, I think we're slightly -- so your 6% and 9%, actually, we have hardly any difference at all. I think we had 1 percentage point difference between Perm and Temp. So it certainly wasn't significant enough to plug to bring out.Of course, the backdrop to June '19 was that we actually didn't grow fees in that quarter. So I think the important bit here, and I did -- as you guys know, first of all, I've been doing this job for 15 years. And secondly, we focus really quite a lot on the exact words that we use in here. We talked about exiting then entering the new year with positive trading momentum. We talked about that we had good momentum in the quarter. But absolutely, this quarter is quite different from the previous quarter.So if you think of this recovery and you break it into 3 phases, clearly, for us, our fees troughed in May, and that May to September period was kind of a gradual rebound. We had a very, very strong rebound from September, October time right the way through to March. I said last time, March was materially bigger than any other quarter that we -- any other month that we have had. And actually posed the question on March was that, would we beat that in June, because I think one of the questions was, were there a lot of catch-up jobs and all those sorts of things. I think the positive is, if there were, then there's a more broader recovery in June than the one in March. I think that's positive. And let me give you an example of that. We picked up some kind of COVID-related work as well going into February and March. The good news is that has all disappeared now. So this, in my mind, June is a much clearer period. But June is always better than March in a normal year. We were about 3% higher June versus March in absolute levels of fees. It should have been a good 1% to 2% higher. But I actually still think the fact that March was so that June was higher is a positive.And actually, if we look across this quarter, and this doesn't answer your question, but it gives a little bit of color, where was the sequential momentum across this quarter? ANZ, we actually haven't had that much of a recovery. I mean it wasn't as hard hit in the first place. There wasn't a lot of recovery from October through to March. We saw a real acceleration of fees in this quarter. We clearly are watching what's going on in Sydney at the moment because it looks like they're heading for a 6-week extension to the lockdown. But so far, it has been very strong. The U.S. is a phenomenally hot market. It's actually in this quarter, it's now our fourth largest business, and we now have got GBP 50 million fees. But strategically, we need that business to be 2, 3, 4x bigger, and that's an important part of our growth plan. German contracting was really encouraging. While some of those additional contractors are more on kind of 3- or 4-day assignments and all being on 5, that was a real positive on the volume, and we got back strongly. Actually, parts of Continental Europe, certainly, the northern parts of Continental Europe, we're reasonably sequentially flat across the quarter. And the U.K., we had a massive uplift in March. Actually, we've traded broadly sideways across this quarter, but we were pretty happy with that because I think the quality of the business in June is higher than the one it is in March. So June was better than March, 3%. Should have been better anyway, but let's call it 1% to 2%. So we're really happy with that.If I look at the forward trends and what is clear is that perm job registrations continue to increase, interview numbers continue to increase. Temp volumes is a very gradual increase, but that's the beauty of the temp market. It never falls as much, and you never get a spike going on the way back. And we've got a very diversified global Temp & Contracting business, and I would expect that to continue. So I think sequentially, I would actually say from a sequential standpoint across this quarter, about 80% of our fee growth was in the perm space and about 20% of it is in temp. And I think that's probably right, and we're pretty happy with this quarter versus June versus March in this quarter versus the previous quarter. On drop-through rates, I don't have the Q4 drop-through rate number, and I'm not sure whether it'd be that significant. You can see that we put significant headcount in. We've also spent a lot of money on the Return to Growth projects, and some of that is not in consultant headcount. It's actually in managerial capability. I was very explicit on the last call that our strategic imperative is to double the size of our IT business. We're back above pre-pandemic level, and we're determined to drive that from that GBP 250 million pre-pandemic to GBP 500 million over the next 3, 4, 5 years. That's the biggest opportunity, and that involves strengthening management team and everything else. But importantly, looking into FY '22, because I think this is the important point, we actually expect our drop-through to be around 40%. Now if you add the answers I've given to you and the answers I gave to Matthew, clearly, we are getting on the front foot and we're investing. And that's not just about the 420 people we brought in, in Q4, a similar amount we'll do in Q1, that's going to continue across the next year. I actually expect that we will exit, assuming everything continues, that we will exit FY '22 with the consultant headcount in line with where we were -- broadly in line with where we were pre-pandemic and pre-pandemic peak. And that is all about driving significant substantial fee growth in FY '23 and '24 and beyond. So absolutely, we're trading profitability in FY '22. We'll get a good [ rate ] back in '22, but we're trading that off because we believe there's a massive opportunity in price and we're focused on that. So Hans, I've tried to answer your questions and bring them together. But if there's anything I've missed, please, please do ask me again.

[Hans Pluijgers, Head of Research of Benelux]

No. It's a good insight.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from the line of Anvesh Agrawal calling from Morgan Stanley.

[Anvesh Agrawal, Equity Analyst]

Just a couple of questions, and you sort of partially answered my question around the cost. But exiting at a monthly or a period cost base of GBP 71 million, which is sort of already higher than where you were in FY '19, and then with further investments to come, are we looking at like a structurally higher cost base from here on? And then sort of -- or how should we sort of think about in terms of then you surpassing the peak profitability in this cycle? And then just on the cash, which is better than where at least I was, is that also partially due to Temp being probably slower than Perm? Or does this mean we have an upside to your targets of cash returns over the next 12 to 18 months?

[Paul Venables, Group Finance Director & Executive Director]

Let me take the second one first. That's easy. I think the good news, Anvesh, is I probably got -- me and my FDs have probably got a job for at least another 3 months because the cash performance was superb. And whilst I don't have the statutory for the final numbers yet, certainly, in our management accounts, we're at an all-time record debtors level. So a year ago, we were all-time record debtors level at 34 days. We've reduced that further across this year. We've had absolutely stellar cash performance across all of our businesses around the world, and I think we're really very proud. I mean that's something that James Hilton who drives a lot of this and myself are really proud about.And that has broadly helped pay for the increase in temp because we had a strong rebound in temp. And back earlier on, our highest paid temps, our German contractors, were back at all-time record volume levels. And therefore, I think we're in a really strong position. So GBP 410 million clearly will reflect on what we're going to do when we come to year-end.But I think one of the things that's absolutely clear is, if you do your modeling, at the moment, we kind of led everybody to something like GBP 120 million dividend this year. But I think when the trading specials kick back in strongly over the next couple of years, dividend payments are going to be certainly GBP 150 million a year for the next few years. So I think we're in a really strong position from a cash perspective. About 30% of our shareholder base is income fund. They've stayed with us throughout this pandemic. We're very grateful to that, and we look forward to rewarding them. On the cost base, actually, you weren't factually correct. So let me just fix that. The number that we were quoting pre-pandemic was the February cost base. But of course, June's cost base often -- I mean June's fees are greater than we were in February 2020. And we'd already started to reduce headcount and everything else going into that. So we're happy with the cost base. It is tightly in control in that there are 0 surprises at all, and it is all about the strategic growth investments, which are around making sure that we have all of the pieces in place to drive material increase in IT fees around the world.And then, of course, it's not just absolute fees. It's making sure that we're in all of the relevant sub-specialisms. And Alistair talked on the last -- at the interims and the prelims to say, we've got very strong market positions in some areas, but other ones that we need to increase. So I think from that standpoint, I don't think we're going to have a structurally higher cost base, Anvesh. I do believe if you take a 5-year horizon, we will be able to reduce our property cost by something in the region of GBP 20 million. James Hilton is also leading a complete review of all of our functions around the world. And we'll look at driving efficiencies there through both automation and AI and where we are located and everything else. So I think we've got good opportunities.We've always had the most efficient cost base in the industry. We've always had the highest conversion rate in the industry, and that will continue going forward. So we are very positive on it. But what is true is that in things like, I mean, from a cost base perspective, if we're looking at exiting '19 versus where we are now, '19, we're very low incentive levels. Now clearly, FY '21, actually, all of our businesses have materially beat their targets, incentive payments are higher, all those sorts of things. But I think we're really well placed for significant structural growth over the next few years. And we're investing significantly into areas that I think are quite exciting. We'll -- Alistair will take you through in detail on those now. And David would kick me if I started covering them today. He's looking at me with daggers at the moment. You know what a forceful person he is. But I think take all of these plays, the uniformity of the recovery, the fact that we've had a few upgrades, and we know we're going to materially increase profitability next year just through the annualization of fee levels we've got, but absolutely, I'm not here to -- I am a top 100 shareholder. I've been here 15 years. We know this business inside out, and we're determined to invest ahead of the curve, and that's going into strengthening management in certain areas around the world. So we've got everything in the right place to attack the market. It's also making sure that we've got a very strong presence in civil engineering and civil construction around the world because that's going to lead into the green economy investments that will come down 5 to 10 years into the future as well, as I said earlier, on tech and the IT sector. So I think this is good investment. We're seeing the market opportunities. We set out our stall at the 2017 Investor Day. That saw profitability opportunities well beyond GBP 250 million. Those are there today. And I think all of us know -- whilst we all know at some point in time, we're all going to put our hands in the pocket to pay for all the government expenditure that's going on, but at the moment, I think the next 2 or 3 years feel really positive, and we're determined to attack the market. So we've got very loyal shareholders, very supportive of us, focused on growth, and I think we're in for an exciting few years.

[Anvesh Agrawal, Equity Analyst]

Yes. Well, that's very comprehensive. And just to be clear on that, you said something in the beginning of your answer that June is anyways higher. So to take the GBP 71 million and then on the top of it, applying further GBP 20 million of investment you're making, like divided by 12.5, obviously, plus the headcount would be a wrong way to think about it, right, then because...

[Paul Venables, Group Finance Director & Executive Director]

Yes. Let me help you with that. And this is one of the things that you always debate as a team as to what you put in an announcement and everything else. But if we look at the headcount that we've already done and the headcount that we expect to do, excluding the Return to Growth projects for next year, that's about a GBP 50 million investment in increases in consultant headcounts across the year, so an impact of GBP 50 million. Clearly, they're going to deliver some fees, but we won't fully get that back next year. So there is a net investment on that GBP 50 million. And then on top, we've got GBP 20 million worth of Strategic Growth Investment, as I said, Alistair will set the stall out. A good half of that, we get no return, none at all next year, but it really positions us for FY '23 and beyond.And we are really focused on making sure that we're putting everything in place to get back to peak profitability, either in '23 or '24, and to go well beyond that. That's our objective. And therefore, we're absolutely prepared to invest in '22. And except that we could, we may well leave GBP 20 million to GBP 30 million profit on the table in '22, but I think that's the right thing to do in a strong market. What I don't want to do is sweat the consultant asset base, sweat the management asset base. And we protected all of management and all senior consultants across the pandemic. We're now investing to leverage off that by bringing newcomers into the business.But I don't want to focus everything on '22, sweat that and then lose momentum in '23. That's not what we're paid to do. What we're paid to do is to identify the key opportunities in the marketplace and attack those. And therefore, both in '21, but even more in '22, we're putting some key investment into getting us ready for the next 5 to 10 years because the beauty of Hays is that we're at the 53 year of our business, and we've got a long way to go. So we're determined to come out of this. I mean this has been a strange recovery, hasn't it, and it's been so strong. But all the signs are there, and therefore, we should not play the last downturn. We should play this recovery and we should invest strongly.

[Operator]

We have no further questions in the queue at this point. So I'll hand the call back over to your host. Thank you.

[Paul Venables, Group Finance Director & Executive Director]

Well, thank you very much. If that's all the questions for today, we'd like to thank you all again for joining the call. I look forward to speaking to you at our next FY '21 prelim results on the 26th of August. And should anybody have any follow-up questions, of course, David, Charles and I will be available to take your calls for the rest of the day.Thank you very much for joining. Have a good day. And for those of you in the U.K., it looks like a good weekend, so please enjoy. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your lines.