Group full of NRG to supply professional staff

NRG City and NRG Connect will open for business later this year. Their creation follows the company's move to new premises in Grey Street, Newcastle.

The news came as the company reported pre-tax profits, for the six months to December 31, 2000, of £566,000.

That compares with a pre-tax profit of £1.41m in the same period of 1999, but is an improvement on the pre-tax loss of £0.09m in the second half of that year.

Lorna Moran, chief executive of the group, said: "We have won a number of important new clients in recent months, including Sitel, who are establishing a major technical help desk facility on North Tyneside, and other permanent recruitment campaigns, deffered from the first half are coming through as expected.

"There is, however, still an opportunity to improve the performance of our operations in Leeds and Scotland."

She added: "We will shortly launch an entirely new business, NRG Connect, to exploit the potential of the fully equipped 110-seat call centre, we are creating at our new premises."

NRG Connect will allow smaller companies in the region, and potential inward investors to outsource their call centre operations, for specified short periods of time.

In February NRG launched a training joint venture with Learning Dynamix, which has already won a number of clients and has scope for further expansion nationwide.

Looking ahead, Mrs Moran said: "Our core businesses in the North-East continue to perform well, with our new premises in Newcastle winning approval from clients, creating new business opportunities and significantly boosting staff morale.

"The group as a whole is financially sound and cash generative. We continue to believe that broadening our traditional recruitment base through the development of a growing range of people-based services offers significant potential for the longer term."

Shareholders will receive an interim dividend of 0.72p per share, unchanged on the same period of 1999