Softcat smashes through £800m revenue as CEO hunt continues

Annual sales grow by nearly a quarter

Softcat's shares spiked in early trading this morning as it announced that sales were up by nearly a quarter in its first full year of trading as a public company.

Revenues for the 12 months ended 31 July 2017 rose by 24 per cent to £832.5m, which the Marlow-based reseller put down to winning 800 new customers and selling more to existing ones.

Adjust operating profit grew by 10.1 per cent to hit £51.5m.

Softcat CEO Martin Hellawell announced in May that he is to step back into the non-executive chairman role, and in this morning's stock exchange announcement, the firm said its hunt for a new CEO "is progressing".

"In the meantime I remain fully focused on doing the job and look forward when the time comes to continuing with the company as non-executive Chairman," Hellawell said.

"It's been a privilege to lead Softcat through a period of 48 quarters of top line and bottom line year-on-year organic growth and, while we are far from perfect and have much we can improve on, the business is in good shape and the opportunity ahead of us is clear."