19th Mar 2019 08:33
LONDON (Alliance News) - Softcat PLC on Tuesday said it expects to report annual results slightly ahead of forecasts following strong growth in profit in the first half.
Shares in FTSE 250-listed company were trading 6.3% higher on Tuesday at 890.08 pence each.
The IT infrastructure products and services company said pretax profit in the six months to the end of January grew 40% to GBP34.0 million from GBP24.2 million reported for the same period a year earlier.
Softcat's revenue rose by 21% to GBP434.20 million from GBP358.3 million the year before, helped by improved cloud-based software sales. Customer numbers also grew by 6.5% to 10,100 from 9,500.
"We have maintained our ongoing and long-term investment in building scale and creating new capabilities, and this has delivered further success against both of our simple strategic goals of doing more business with our existing customers and winning new customers," said Chief Executive Graeme Watt.
The company declared an interim dividend of 4.5p per share, up 36% from 3.3p paid the year prior.
During the period, Softcat said its London and Leeds office relocations to larger premises have been completed. The company now plans to open one new UK office by the end of the calendar year.
Meanwhile, its Ireland office now has 15 salespeople, Softcat highlighted, with good progress is being made in winning new customers and local vendor accreditations.
"We added more than 600 new customers in the period while gross profit per customer grew by almost 20%," said Watt.
Looking ahead, Watt added: "The board expects a full-year outcome marginally ahead of previous expectations."
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