Computacenter profits up Q1 2006

Consultancy and services help boost VAR giant

Corporate VAR Computacenter has seen turnover drop, but profit rise in the first half of 2006.
Group turnover was £1.11bn, a fall from the £1.15bn achieved in the same period of 2005. However, its profit before tax was £14.5m, a sizable rise from the £8.2m in Q1 2005. However, for the second half of 2005, the firm posted turnover of £2.29bn and pre-tax profit stood at £34m.

Computacenter said it was an "encouraging performance" of UK Technology Solutions, its consulting and systems integration business.

Ron Sandler, chairman of Computacenter, said in a statement: “The improvement in Computacenter’s profitability is encouraging. I have reported in the past on the market challenges faced in recent years by Computacenter, and on the significant efforts underway to improve our competitiveness and focus our resources on higher margin activities. Whilst the various transformation programmes are essentially long-term in nature and it is far too early to comment definitively on their success, we are increasingly confident that we are on the right track as today’s results demonstrate.

“Looking ahead, we anticipate that the improvements we are seeing in the Group’s market positioning and performance will continue as the year progresses. The outlook for the full year remains in line with expectations,” added Sandler.