C. K. Lau, chairman of Recruit Holdings Ltd (fifth of the left), proposes a toast at the company's listing ceremony on the main board yesterday.Edmond Tang

Recruit Holdings Ltd, Hong Kong's leading recruitment advertising service provider, successfully listed on the main board yesterday, making it one of the handful secondary public companies to advance to the higher board of Hong Kong bourse within a few years' time.

Initially listed on the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM), a lower threshold fund pool, in 2000, Recruit transformed itself from a job advertisement publisher to a full-fledged employment service provider, with its stock price achieving two-fold growth over the last six months.

The significant development in both scales and business areas is because of the dynamic company management and solid working relationship with business partners, said C.K. Lau, the company's chairman.

"Each and every staff has ownership in our company, which is an effective way to motivate the entire team," said Lau.

"Though I wouldn't label it as a great success, it is just ways of doing business," he added.

The company is seeking ties with counterparts on the mainland and planning to extend presence from the existing three cities to more areas including second-tier cities, he said.

"We currently have three offices on the mainland - in Beijng, Shanghai and Guangzhou respectively. We are thinking of establishing offices in other places such as Chengdu and Zhejiang and second-tier cities like Ningbo are also on the list," he said.

Growth on the mainland has made significant contributions to the revenue of the company, which is forging closer ties with business partners in the region.

Recruit's inflight magazine, which is given to passengers of China Eastern Airlines, achieved record earnings, despite intense competition and rising operating costs.

The 1010 Job Recruitment Magazine published in Shanghai, which is supported by the 1010job.com portal, proved to be appealing among the job-seekers in China last year.

The recruitment service provider posted a strong growth of 56 percent in profit for 2006, increasing to HK$58.2 million from HK$37.2 million recorded in the previous year.

The company's turnover was HK$298 million last year, compared with HK$227 million and HK$103 million in 2005 and 2004 respectively.

Recruit magazine is said to be the first-ever free publication dedicated to recruitment advertising in the world. The innovative business idea won Recruit a Gold Prize for marketing excellence jointly launched by the Hong Kong Management Association (HKMA) and TVB Group in 1992.

In a bid to broaden the customer base and readership, the magazine launched its online version Recruitonline.com in 1996.

The company started selling shares on the GEM in 2000, one year after the market is opened for smaller companies raising fund to fuel growth.

GEM listing members are companies that have been in operation for at least one year with relatively lower profitability, whereas Hong Kong's main board asks for at least a combined HK$50 million profit over three years and a HK$200 million market value.

(HK Edition 07/24/2007 page6)