HRG has increased its profits for the last financial year despite a fall in travel spending and client activity.
The global TMC saw pre-tax profit increase by 1 per cent to £34.3 million despite an 8 per cent fall in revenue to £343.2 million for the financial year ending in March. Operating profit also rose by 4 per cent to £44.8 million.
HRG said that client activity had fallen by 5 per cent during the year while travel spending also dropped by 8 per cent.
Chief executive David Radcliffe said that the company had produced a “resilient performance under testing conditions”.
“We have remained focused on maintaining a cost base that is appropriate to the market backdrop while ensuring that our usual high standard of client service is not compromised,” said Radcliffe.
“Our focus continues to be on delivering good value to our clients through excellent service which meets their specific requirements.”
Radcliffe added that the company had cut costs in response to the slowdown in the corporate travel market.
“We reduced our staffing levels and other operating costs during the year and introduced a number of self-help measures designed to further reduce our costs and protect margin as we go forward,” he said.
HRG said that its UK division had delivered “another robust performance” helped by increased activity by major clients including the UK government.
The company also won new clients such as Centrica, law firm Clifford Chance and Unilever in the UK during the last financial year.
“We began to see some signs of recovery during the second half of the year following a relatively flat year-on-year performance in the first half,” said HRG in its report.
“The proportion of rail tickets booked by HRG's UK business continues to grow and is now larger than that of air and hotel transactions, a result of a number of factors including changes to travel patterns and increasing business with the UK government.”
Radcliffe added that HRG expected trading in the global business travel market to continue to be weak over the next few months. "Overall in the current year, whilst global prospects are showing some signs of improvement, given the economic and political uncertainties that continue to exist in several of our key markets, we expect trading conditions in our industry to remain weak," he said.