ZURICH (Reuters) - Adecco (SIX:ADEN), the world's biggest staffing group, has not been hit so far by Britons' vote in June to leave the European Union, Chief Executive Alain Dehaze told Reuters.
"We don't see any material impact of Brexit, either in the UK or in the neighbouring countries and the UK's trading partners," he said in a telephone interview after the company posted in-line results for the second quarter.
"We were seeing (before the vote) a delay in decisions on hiring of highly skilled people and some investment until customers have more clarity on the future of the UK. Especially with our activities we are concentrated on local customers and local activities. At this stage we don't see any immediate impact."
Dehaze said Adecco was "absolutely not" under pressure to act after Randstad, the world's second-largest staffing company, announced plans to acquire Monster Worldwide, the dotcom-era survivor that owns Monsterboard and Jobs.com, for $429 million (329 million pounds) in cash and assumed debt
Dehaze gave an upbeat assessment of market conditions. "The growth is continuing. It is modest growth, 4 percent organic, but we don't see any slowdown with a France that is robust, a little bit softer in North America."
In France, Adecco's biggest single market, growth was recovering after a May marred by strikes and bad weather.
"We have seen a continuation of this modest growth and slow recovery in France in the month of July and also since the beginning of August," he said, adding September would be key as clients return from holidays and size up their order books.
Finance chief Hans Ploos van Amstel was coy on the prospect for potential stock buybacks.
"From a cash flow point of view we are half way into the year with very strong results, out net debt to EBITDA is where we want it to be, so we are in a good position but this is something we will announce going forward at the end of the year," he said.