By Stuart Condie
SYDNEY–Seek will keep reinvesting in pursuit of its longer-term revenue target despite a weak first-half performance that sparked a sharp drop in the Australian job advertiser’s shares, Chief Executive Ian Narev said.
Seek on Tuesday lowered its annual guidance for its current fiscal 2024 and cut its dividend after a first half in which its revenue and profit fell short of market expectations.
The ASX-listed company reported revenue for the December half of 596.8 million Australian dollars (US$389.7 million), compared with A$626.7 million a year earlier and an average analyst forecast of A$617 million.
With shares down 13% in early trade, Narev said Seek would keep tight control of operating expenses while maintaining reinvestment to drive long-term growth. Seek aims to grow annual revenue to A$2 billion by fiscal 2028.
“We’re not going to slow expenditure towards the two billion-dollar revenue target: what we will do is be sensible in this environment and watch discretionary spending,” Narev told The Wall Street Journal in an interview.
Lowering its full-year outlook, Seek pointed to first-half ad volumes that were at the lower end of its expectations. Narev said Seek was confident that challenging macro conditions, rather than operational or product factors, were behind the softer performance.
After booming with the relaxation of Covid-related restrictions on movement and migration, Seek’s ad volumes had moderated back to levels seen in fiscal 2019, Narev said.
“That wasn’t sort of a disastrous economy: that was sort of a little bit of a steady-state kind of economy,” Narev said.
Write to Stuart Condie at [email protected]
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