LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Employee services provider Personal Group Holdings updated the market on its trading following its financial year ended 31 December on Tuesday, reporting that it had continued to make "good progress" on delivering its strategy following the appointment of Deborah Frost as chief executive officer in March.
The AIM-traded firm said that overall trading for the 2019 financial year was in line with market expectations.

It said the Insurance segment retained its strong profitability during 2019, despite the volume of new policies written during the year being slightly hindered by a slowdown of new client business wins.

The company said it was now starting to see positive signs from its investment in sales and marketing to address that.

During the financial year, the 'PG Let's Connect' segment improved its year-on-year performance.

The company said it was expecting that growth to continue, following a positive reaction to the new proposition created for the NHS.

Its software-as-a-service (SaaS) business delivered a "strong" increase in revenue, driven by increased user spend on its 'Hapi' platform, and the fact that the provision of products such as reloadable cards, e-vouchers and cinema tickets were now serviced largely in-house.

An increase in paid-for Hapi subscriptions and the addition of consultancy income following the acquisition of Innecto had also helped to drive that growth.

The relationship with Sage also continued to progress following the launch of Sage Employee Benefits on 2 September, the board said, with a new "extensive" marketing campaign planned by Sage for the first quarter of 2020.

Personal Group said it remained well-placed to benefit from the continued growth and development of the employee services market, and the associated increasing pressure on businesses to improve productivity and attract and retain staff in a tightening labour market.

"I'm delighted to report that the company traded in-line with expectations in 2019," said chief executive officer Deborah Frost.

"We are starting to see the benefits of the investment that the company has made in sales and marketing and developing our strategy.

"We enter 2020 in a good position across all three business segments."

At 1034 GMT, shares in Personal Group Holdings were down 0.7% at 358.48p.

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