SCH's UK business joins £1bn club
SCH chairman Sir Peter Rigby "extremely pleased" with privately held IT group's 2011 performance
Specialist Computer Holding's (SCH) UK business has broken through the £1bn turnover barrier for the first time, following a double-digit sales hike in its fiscal 2011.
The privately held IT group struck an upbeat note as it filed its annual accounts for the 12 months ending 31 March on Monday.
Total turnover from continuing operations rose 11 per cent to £2.48bn, while operating profit fell marginally to £22.9m in the face of "highly competitive market conditions".
SCH singled out its UK operations, which comprise integrator SCC and distributor SDG, for praise as turnover from this country surged 15.7 per cent to hit £1bn. SCC's service revenues grew 35 per cent to £112m to account for nearly 20 per cent of the integrator's total haul.
UK operating profit dipped slightly from £10m to £9.6m.
SCH chairman Sir Peter Rigby (pictured) said he is "extremely pleased" with the group's performance for the year.
"In a challenging marketplace, the group has continued to grow, which was delivered by staying true to our market positioning as a partner of choice for optimising infrastructure and optimising cloud," he said.
"Furthermore, the results for the period from April 2011 to September 2011 have been very encouraging, and we anticipated outstanding results for the year ending 31 March 2012."
SCH did a fair bit of wheeling and dealing in fiscal 2011, acquiring UK datacentre VAR Kavanagh in September 2010, as exclusively revealed by CRN. It also snapped up UK print services outfit TSG and a unit of French competitor Ares, invested nearly £12m in a third UK datacentre, and exited its Belgian distribution activities.
The company's French business grew 16 per cent to €1.3bn (£1.1bn). Dutch revenues swelled by 52 per cent to €0.4bn while Spanish sales hit €56.6m.
SCH's post-tax profit on ordinary activities hit £11.26m, down from £15m a year earlier. Exceptional operating expenses rose from £2.2m to £3.7m and included a £2.3m charge to settle a long-standing dispute with the UK taxman.