Computacenter saw revenues pass £5bn for the first time for the full-year 2019, with sales growing 16.1% (or 16.9% in constant currency) to £5.05bn.
The Technology Sourcing (resale) business grew 20.3% and the Services business went up 4.7%. Technology Sourcing sales were £3.8bn and Services generated £1.2bn.
Most of the overall sales growth came from acquisitions, with 80% of the £732m added coming from those sources, including from the US. There was a 23.8% increase in adjusted profit before tax to £146.3m, resulting in a record adjusted diluted EPS of 92.5 pence (2018: 75.7 pence) - an increase of 22.2%.
“France had an excellent year”, said Computacenter, with an organic increase in revenues of 15.7%, led by a “buoyant” Technology Sourcing marketplace, and an increase in adjusted operating profit of 76.3%, both on a constant currency basis.
“Germany delivered another strong performance”, with revenue growth of 5.2% during the year driven by a “resilient Technology Sourcing business” and a “strong Professional Services result”, leading to a total 27.9% increase in adjusted operating profit.
The UK, however, saw a reduction in revenues of 1.8% as both Services and Technology Sourcing revenues declined. The prior year comparative result contained two very large “margin-dilutive” Technology Sourcing deals that, being one-off in nature, contributed to this decline, said the company. But adjusted operating profit increased by 10.6% during the year, with improvements in both Services and Technology Sourcing margins.
The US acquisition, made on 30 September 2018, saw a “much better performance in the second half of 2019”, as sales orders returned to a “more expected baseline level” after the slowdown in volumes in the first half of the year. Mike Norris (pictured), chief executive of Computacenter, said: “As we stated back in January, the results for 2019 would set a high bar for the business in 2020. It is too early to predict the outcome for the year as a whole and there is still much work to be done, particularly as we have not yet completed our first quarter.”
But, he added: “Our Services pipeline is the strongest we have seen for some time in both Professional and Managed Services. While we still believe customers will continue to invest in product, particularly in the areas of security, networking and cloud, it may well be difficult to achieve the same growth rates we have seen in recent years.”
On the current COVID-19 outbreak, Norris said it made forecasting the future “even more challenging”. In the short term, he said the firm was “urgently supporting our customers focused on their business continuity plans” which “involves the need for a greater degree of remote working - we have seen a surge in demand for laptop computers for this purpose”.
