Seek $67.54m, up 11.5% 1H2013

Employment listings website, Seek (ASX:SEK) has released its first half results for the FY 2013 to shareholders, traders and investors.

• Seek Net Profit $67.54 million, up 11.5 percent.
• Seek Revenue from ordinary activities for the half lifted 32.7 percent to $277.9 million.
• Earnings from its Australia and New Zealand employment business was steady at $120.9 million.
• Chief executive officer Andrew Basset said, "Seek’s portfolio of leading businesses are well positioned for medium to long term earnings growth."
• Seek also announced increasing its stake in Chinese employment website Zhaopin, increasing its ownership from 55.5 percent to 78.2 percent. Bassat said, "I am pleased to announce that seek has increased its ownership interest in Zhaopin to 78.2% for a total consideration of $132.8 million." The deal utilised $US68 million in Zhaopin funding.
• Seek owns JobsDB and JobStreet in Asia and 51 percent in Brasil Online Holdings and 57 percent in OCC Mundial based in Mexico.
• Seek declared a fully franked interim dividend of 10 cents, up from 8.3 cents per share.