Latin America shores up Westcon and Logicalis parent

UK and US remain "challenging" for South Africa-based Datatec

A continued strong performance in Latin America is helping Westcon and Logicalis owner Datatec towards its first $5bn (£3.25bn) financial year, but the UK remains one of the firm's most "challenging markets".

In an interim management statement published today, the Johannesburg-headquartered firm asserted that it expects numbers for the second half of FY12, which closes on 28 February, to exceed the year's opening half. It is standing by its previously published forecasts of full-year sales of $5bn and post-tax profit of $84m. This compares with a profit of $46m on revenue of $4.3bn last year.

Today's statement addressed Datatec's performance in the last four calendar months of 2011, and Logicalis is reported to have enjoyed continued improvement in operating margins during the period. The integrator's "exceptional performance in Latin America continued", said Datatec, but the US and the UK were singled out as being more "more challenging".

Westcon enjoyed a good finish to 2011, according to the statement, with the distributor performing solidly across all regions as it "continues to benefit from good operating leverage". In Europe, "solid execution supported good performance", said its owner.

Datatec chief executive Jens Montanana said: "Datatec's global reach and diversity are continuing to help insulate us against the poor economic backdrop of many of the world's economies. Latin America and Asia-Pacific remain the best-performing markets, while the group's operations continue to perform well in challenging trading conditions in North America and Europe."