Improvement not hard work for Allied Work Force

Listed labour hire company Allied Work Force would increase revenue and consider more acquisitions, managing director Simon Hull said yesterday at what may have been the most innovative setting for an annual meeting this year.

At the top of an escalator above the platforms at Auckland's Britomart railway station, the company's founder predicted similar organic growth to that achieved last year - 10.4 per cent on a same branch basis.

Total operating revenue for the year to March was up 22 per cent at $74.6 million, from a pro-forma result of $61.1 million the previous year.

Allied bought 64 per cent of agricultural labour hire business Contract Labour Services last September and Hull said the company was looking at further growth opportunities from acquisition.

But he said after the meeting that this would not include buying Hirequip's equipment hire business, which is for sale.

Allied would remain focused on hiring out people. "We're looking to stay within that labour-supply sector," he said. "Just because it's got hire in the name, we don't see it as really having any synergies."

The draught from the platform, and occasional pauses in proceedings for timetable announcements and passing trains, did not appear to diminish shareholders' enthusiasm for the location. Britomart was chosen because of the work undertaken by Allied on the project "right from the start when they were coming out of the ground we had people here knee-deep in mud".

Allied has about 8000 clients and 10,000 workers on its books, deploying up to 4000 people on any given day.

The company had also been granted its first approval in principle to bring 20 overseas carpenters to Auckland for up to two years to fill skills shortages.

Contract Labour Services could also benefit from future applications.

"Clearly in that industry there are issues with labour supply," Hull said. "We are looking to be the solution. We would expect that bringing people in will be one of the ways we solve that problem."

Shares in Allied, which listed on the NZX last July, closed up 1c yesterday at $1.74.