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Kcom reports middling results for the year

Unaudited preliminary figures to 31 March 2013 show slight shrinkage in profit before tax as well as revenue

Kcom Group's figures for the year ending 31 March were in line with expectations, with profit before tax of £50.7m on revenue of £372.9m.

According to the announcement out today, the firm's profit before tax is expected to be down 1.4 per cent from the previous year's audited £56.0m. Revenue is predicted to shrink 3.7 per cent from the previous year's audited £387.3m.

Kcom Group's debts have also increased, according to its stock exchange announcement – to £88.2m, up from 2011-2012's £75.3m. Kcom says that is mainly due to share purchases "to satisfy the vesting of certain Group share schemes".

Bill Halbert, executive chairman at Kcom, maintained that the outlook, which was in line with expectations, was good longer term.

"The group has made further progress in improving the quality and long-term sustainability of the business. This is shown by the continued strong performance in [the] KC [arm] and some of the key customer wins during the year," Halbert said.

The company had strengthened its competitive position in target markets, and was managing its finances carefully, he added.

"We remain focused on executing our strategy for profitable growth across each of our brands, targeting opportunities to provide more value-added services to existing customers, alongside winning new contracts across all our target markets," said Halbert.

"This will be underpinned by continued investment in those areas that support scalable and efficient delivery of services to our customers."

The Kcom business had benefited from key customer wins such as a managed services deal with National Farmers Union Mutual, which was signed after the year had ended, and in the public services networking market, according to the announcement.

The Smart421 consultancy operation was seeing its AWS relationship strengthen and therefore its reputation in the cloud app integration field, it said.

Meanwhile, the Eclipse brand was building an "increasingly strong" presence, as a provider of broadband-based communications services to SMBs, it added.

During the year, the firm implemented a suite of tools to support its managed services customers and upgraded its desktop and server infrastructure, among other IT improvements.

This year the group would focus on value-added services delivery across all brands, with the aim of generating profitable growth, it said, as well as improving effectiveness and scale at the back-office end.