The business became employee owned in 2024
Global recruitment firm Visuna says it has noticed the market turning in its favour, following a restructure in response to a recent downturn.
The North East-based business specialises in energy and tech recruitment, operating from Washington headquarters as well as bases in the US, Middle East and Australia. It says 2025 saw a continued downturn in its markets caused by fragile commodities prices and a slowdown in oil production by OPEC countries which saw key projects delayed.
New accounts for Visuna – which was formerly Oil Consultants Ltd – show turnover actually grew to £109.5m in the year to the end of December 2024, compared with £103.5m the year before. Operating profit over the same year dropped from £8.1m to £7.7m as pre-tax profits fell from £7.1m to £6.4m.
Bosses said a restructuring was carried out in 2025, bringing redundancies at the Washington head office, but that had allowed the group to become leaner without compromising client experiences. That followed Visuna’s shift to become employee owned through a trust, with the group’s owners selling 80% of their shares in the parent company.
Writing in the 20214 accounts, director Richard Fielding said: “Whilst we seen a drop of within our UK business (Visuna Limited) in top line growth due to various factors, we continued to see strong growth in other key territories such as Oil Arabia Contracting LLC (Saudi Arabia) with $4.4m year-on-year growth and Visuna PTY Limited (Asia Pacific) with $4.9m year-on-year growth.
“During 2024 we have seen a downturn in performance within our overseas entities also, including Saudi Arabia, Asia Pacific and the US. This impacted the global market by a fragile stability in commodity prices, driven by a slowing demand for growth and strong efforts by OPEC+ to support prices through production cuts which saw some key projects in our key locations and territories delayed
“We have seen this trend continue in 2025, however in Q4 2025 we have seen the shoots of recovery and Q4 is expected to deliver our best results of the year. In addition we have onboarded several new clients and the outlook for HY1 2026 continues to suggest that the market is starting to turn.”
Visuna has grown considerably in recent years, having posted turnover of £17.9m in 2012. The business, which now employs around 55 people, has expanded beyond its initial oil and gas focus in recent years, to include wider energy fields and technology.
The 2024 accounts show the majority of its turnover was derived in Asia and Africa, with the UK and Europe playing smaller roles. The documents also detail how sales activity was funded through cash reserves from group entities, which include subsidiaries based in Houston, Texas, Malaysia and China, among other locations.
An invoice discounting facility was also used to fund sales, with borrows at $3.47m in 2024, down from $4.37m in 2023. Bosses expect that reduction to continue with no borrows anticipated to figure in the 2025 report.
