Business brisk at Phoenix IT Group

IT infrastructure services outfit says trading 'comfortably in line with expectations' as it reveals string of customer wins

Recuperating IT services outfit Phoenix IT Group has boasted of a number of big customer wins in an upbeat trading update.

The London-listed infrastructure services specialist, which is almost a year into a three-year turnaround plan under new chief executive Steve Vaughan, said trading is "comfortably in line with market profit expectations" for its financial year ending next month.

Phoenix IT Group revealed it recently bagged its largest win to date with its proprietary public cloud offering, CloudSure UK. This is with an unnamed "joint venture business" involved in improving national infrastructure.

Being accredited recently as one of an elite band of Microsoft Cloud Solution Providers (CSPs) has also enabled Phoenix to add Office 365 into its CloudSure UK portfolio, it said.

After peaking at nearly £4.65 in 2008 and £2.87 in 2011, Phoenix's share price sank as low as 85 pence last summer following a series of fluffed reorganisations and missteps, but is now flying high again at £1.32.

In its fiscal first half, underlying pre-tax profits came in ahead of expectations at £5m on revenues that fell 8.1 per cent year on year to £107.4m.

Among the other wins Phoenix highlighted was a three-year desktop project services contract with a major client for its Partner business, which is its largest unit by revenue.

Phoenix claimed it is also making good progress in transitioning customer contracts in its Partner business away from resource-based to SLA-based contracts.

"This is a key part of our strategy to improve margins in Partner and, as a result, we are pleased to confirm that a second significant Partner customer has agreed to make this transition," Phoenix stated.

"From 1 March, this customer – which has been a Partner customer since 1996 – will take advantage of a new flexible resourcing model designed by Phoenix that will help to improve the flexibility, responsiveness and service provided to its end customers," it added.