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Interim Results Announcement
13th September, 2005. Computacenter plc, the European
IT infrastructure services provider, today announces
interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2005.
| Financial Highlights*: |
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Group revenues £1.15 billion
(2004: £1.23 billion) |
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Profit before tax £8.2 million (2004: £30.1
million) |
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Earnings per share 1.2p (2004: 10.7p) |
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Interim dividend of 2.5p per share (2004: 2.3p) |
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Strong balance sheet with net cash increasing
by £41.6 million to £87.3 million |
*All figures restated to IFRS
Ron Sandler, Chairman of Computacenter plc, commented:
“The first half of 2005 has been a challenging
time for Computacenter. The decline in performance is
largely attributable to a steep fall in product margins
in the UK business. On a more positive note, our UK
Managed Services continued to make progress.
We believe that for the foreseeable future our UK product
business will continue to face the challenges of intense
price competition, vendors seeking to sell direct to
large accounts and substantially lowered vendor rebates.
In anticipation of these developments, we embarked
last year upon a major strategic reassessment and, in
the first half of 2005, we completed a fundamental reorganisation
of our UK business to create a platform for implementing
our new strategy. These initiatives represent a significant
programme of activity.
Following the satisfactory resolution of the dispute
with GE, the Board is now able to consider how best
to utilise the Group’s cash resources for the
benefit of shareholders.
Trading has been subdued in July and August, particularly
in the UK. Nevertheless, we anticipate a stronger profit
performance in the second half and the outlook for the
full year remains in line with market expectations.
Looking further ahead, the Board is confident that the
Group’s profits can be improved in the future.”
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