Interim Results Announcement
Financial Highlights*:
• Group revenues £1.15 billion (2004: £1.23 billion)
• Profit before tax £8.2 million (2004: £30.1 million)
• Earnings per share 1.2p (2004: 10.7p)
• Interim dividend of 2.5p per share (2004: 2.3p)
• 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.”
For further information, please contact:
Computacenter plc.
Mike Norris, Chief Executive 01707 631 601
Tessa Freeman, Investor Relations 01707 631 514
www.computacenter.com
Tulchan Communications 020 7353 4200
Tim Lynch
www.tulchangroup.com
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