Computacenter in bullish mood for 2013

Infrastructure and services giant releases trading statement revealing FY2012 will be marginally ahead of expectations

Computacenter is anticipating its end-of-year financials will be marginally ahead of expectations when released in March.

The group, which is due to release its end of year results on 12 March, released a trading statement for the year, ahead of a conference call with investors and analysts today.

It revealed a two per cent increase in revenue on a reported basis and six per cent in constant currency. Group services revenue increased by eight per cent on a reported basis and 12 per cent in constant currency.

In Q4, group services revenue increased six per cent in constant currency, and group supply chain revenue increased five per cent in constant currency. The services and infrastructure giant also revealed it is sitting on a cash pile of £150m, compared with £136m at 31 December 2011.

“We are pleased with the year-end cash position, particularly given some short-term working capital demands during the year relating to the ongoing business growth and our now-completed move to a new warehousing facility in France,” the statement said. “We have also made significant capital investment in the business, particularly in relation to new systems, logistics facilities, service desk capability and remote management in order to sustain our growth.”

Breaking the results down into countries, the UK saw a nine per cent growth in revenue, with services revenue growing by 15 per cent and supply chain revenue growing by five per cent. In Q4, services grew by 13 per cent with a nine per cent growth in supply chain revenue.

Germany saw overall revenue growth of four per cent, with an eight per cent growth in services and two per cent growth in supply chain. Interestingly, Q4 services revenue dropped four per cent, but supply chain grew four per cent.

Finally, France saw overall revenue grow seven per cent, with an impressive 18 per cent growth in services revenue and five per cent growth in supply chain revenue.

The firm said it has entered 2013 in "good shape", with a strong services pipeline. “We expect to make further progress in improving the performance of our problem contracts in Germany, where we will focus primarily on margin improvement,” the statement said. “While it is too early to make predictions about 2013, we enter the year optimistic that the group will make progress.”