Viglen cheers bulging sales and profits

System builder says rise in sales to academies helped swell top and bottom line last year

Public sector IT supplier Viglen has posted a solid rise in turnover and profits on the back of bulging sales to academy schools.

For its fiscal year to 30 September 2012, the St Albans-based system builder saw profit jump 45 per cent to £2.1m on revenue that rose seven per cent to £66.2m, according to a filing on Companies House.

Viglen put the increase down to new business it had won with academy schools, which it said replaced a decline in low-margin public sector sales.

It claims to have already been awarded or to have secured preferred bidder status on more than £14m worth of contracts via the Becta ICT Services framework, which it said is the main procurement route for the government's Free School programme. Most of these contracts will deliver in 2013.

Viglen focuses on pushing PCs, networking, software and services but said it will invest further in storage and high-performance computing in 2013.

It said: "Although the marketplace within the public sector remains challenging, the company believes that the frameworks that it is on, together with the four ISO accreditations it now holds, put it in a strong place to not only maintain its market share in its core activities but to grow due to strong performances in academies and storage."

Sir Alan Sugar stepped down as Viglen chairman in 2009 but the firm has since been used to house Apprentice winners, most controversially series 10 victor Stella English, who recently lost her case of constructive dismissal against Viglen. The firm's headquarters are used to film several recurring scenes from the popular BBC series, including the ‘walk of shame' scene, where each week's fired candidate is dispatched in a taxi outside its building.

Average employee numbers for the year stood at 176, up 12 on the previous year, with 44 working in production and warehousing and 132 in sales and administration. Viglen's wage bill rose by seven per cent to £6m, meaning the average employee was paid just over £34,000. Directors' pay rose to just over £315,000.