26th Aug 2016 06:45
LONDON (Alliance News) - IT infrastructure company Computacenter PLC said its half-year results were slightly better than it anticipated in its first-quarter trading update and expects the full year to show "modest progress" in its adjusted pretax profit compared to 2015.
Computacenter made a statutory pretax profit for the first six months of 2016 of GBP23.6 million, down from GBP70.7 million for the same period in 2015. However the 2015 profit was affected by a GBP42.2 million gain from the disposal of IT recycling company RDC.
The company's adjusted pretax profit for the half-year was GBP25.3 million, down from GBP29.1 million for the first-half of 2015. Adjusted revenue was up to GBP1.48 billion from 1.44 billion.
The company announced an interim dividend of 7.2 pence a share, at approximately one-third of the previous year's full dividend.
Computacenter said its UK business had been "disappointing" in the half as adjusted operating profit dropped 39% and revenue fell by 5.2%. It said there were lower levels of activity as compared to 2015 in its Services business and a large number of customers delayed procurement decisions, dragging down its Supply Chain performance.
However, the company said the effects had been offset by a profit from its French business "significantly ahead of management's expectations" with improvement in supply chain and services margins and continued growth in its German business.
Chief Executive Mike Norris said the first half was "slightly better than we had anticipated" at Computacenter's first-quarter trading update in April, primarily due to outperformance in the French business.
Despite the challenges afflicting the company's UK arm and planned investments in the business, Norris said the group continues to expect "modest progress in our adjusted profit before tax".
"The pipeline of Managed Services growth in the group as a whole is encouraging and should deliver growth in 2017. Even more noticeable is the growing pipeline for Digital Workplace projects which we are looking to close in the second half of 2016, as customers look to take advantage of new operating systems. Particularly pleasing is the likely growth in major customers, one of our strategic key performance indicators" he added.
By Adam Clark; [email protected]
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