The best and worst-performing publicly listed resellers of 2017
CRN tracks the 2017 performance of UK resellers trading on the stock exchange
With 2017 now confined to the archives, CRN has pulled together the key numbers from the UK's publicly listed channel firms.
Interestingly, every reseller in this list saw its share price drop below its 2017 start price at some point last year. Only Computacenter ended the 2017 on its highest price of the year, following a recovery in its UK business. Softcat meanwhile continued to flourish after floating in 2015.
The following list ranks the UK's top publicly listed resellers in ascending order of share price growth.
All stock prices have been sourced from the London Stock Exchange website and are in penny sterling.
K3
Starting price: 309.5
Year low: 144.25 (17 May)
Year high: 309.5 (3 January)
End of year: 181.5
Percentage up/down: -41.4
K3's share price was hit by two dramatic plummets in 2017 - one in January (a 21 per cent drop) and one in May (a 40 per cent drop).
In May, K3 issued a trading update warning that its results for the year would be "significantly below current market expectations", before reporting a revenue drop of 5.2 per cent for the 12 months ending 30 June.
Earlier in the year K3 had issued a warning claiming that sales in December 2016 had been weaker than expected, which would affect imminent results.
A trading update last month, however, claimed that the software firm is now back on track and expecting to meet future targets.
Maintel
Starting price: 880
Year low: 615 (22 December)
Year high: 1040 (20 March)
End of year: 630
Percentage up/down: -28.4
AIM-listed Maintel's share price was relatively stable throughout the first half of 2017, until a steady decline started in August.
Maintel announced its acquisition of Intrinsic on 1 August, before interim results released in September saw revenue up 68 per cent as a result of revenue contribution from Azzurri, which it acquired in 2016.
Gross margins however continued to struggle and a trading update confirming this sent its share price down even further. Maintel said that a combination of two large legacy contracts inherited from Azzurri, the knock-on effect from Avaya's Chapter 11 struggles, and the integration of Azzurri were to blame.
Capita
Starting price: 525.5
Year low: 392.9 (21 December)
Year high: 706.5 (26 June)
End of year: 400.9
Percentage up/down: -23.7
Capita signalled that its troubled IT services division was on the road to recovery last year, but the overall business continued to struggle.
The first half of the year saw the outsourcing giant's share price climb, culminating in a high of 706.5p in June when a positive trading update said its group restructuring was progressing well.
However, the tide turned in September when CEO Andy Parker announced his resignation and financial results revealed a three per cent year-on-year underlying revenue decline for H1.
Capita's share price ended up almost one quarter down on the start of the year.
D4t4 Solutions
Starting price: 185.75
Year low: 114 (14 December)
Year high: 185.75 (3 January)
End of year: 147.5
Percentage up/down: -20.6
D4t4's share price peak came at the start of the year, with the price ending the year over 20 per cent down - largely as a result of a drop sustained in December.
Publication of D4t4's half-year results in November brought about the largest drop (19.2 per cent down to 126p), after the firm's revenue dropped by over half - which was attributed to a shift in the timing of contract awards.
A declaration of four new deals at the end of the year however helped boost its price before 2017 drew to a close.
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The best and worst-performing publicly listed resellers of 2017
CRN tracks the 2017 performance of UK resellers trading on the stock exchange
RedstoneConnect*
Starting price: 115
Year low: 89 (29 November)
Year high: 170 (16 January)
End of year: 103.5
Percentage up/down: -10
*A shares consolidation on 6 June last year saw every 100 RedstoneConnect shares rolled up into one new share - causing the price of one share to multiply by 100 overnight. We've multiplied the pre-consolidation share price by 100 for the purpose of illustrating RedstoneConnect's performance on the Stock Exchange.
RedstoneConnect experienced a turbulent second half of the year, seeing its share price hit a 2017 low in November and also rebuffing the prospect of a takeover, after A P Systems showed tentative interest in the firm.
Full-year results published in October showed revenue down slightly at £20.1m, but in December RedstoneConnect announced an OEM deal for its OneSpace software, which is says will be worth over £2m.
IDE Group (formally Coretx)
Starting price: 31
Year low: 27 (15 February)
Year high: 36.69 (1 June)
Year end 2017: 28.75
Percentage up/down: -7.3
Managed IT provider IDE Group experienced something of a topsy turvy 12 months on the Stock Exchange, before seeing its price close at 7.3 per cent down on the start of the year.
Over the course of 2017 its share price hit a low in February and a high in June.
IDE Group acquired Poole-based MSP 365IT in April, but didn't reach its share price spike until around two months later.
Arguably the biggest news came in December when the firm was forced to rebrand from its previous Coretx name, after being found to have infringed the copyright of an IT services firm.
KCOM
Starting price: 92.25
Year low: 87.50 (5 May)
Year high: 110 (3 November)
Year end: 90.75
Percentage up/down: -1.6
Not too dissimilarly to IDE Group, KCOM saw its share price both rise and drop fairly substantially over the course of 2017, before settling at roughly what it started at when the bell rang at the beginning of the year.
A spike of 110p came in November, before dropping to the year low around six weeks later.
Redcentric
Starting price: 92.25
Year low: 70 (25 July)
Year high: 97.75 (5 January)
Year end: 91.5
Percentage up/down: -0.8
MSP Redcentric was already rocking at the start of the year, suffering through the aftermath of the accountancy scandal that saw its share price drop 60 per cent between September and December last year.
A lull of 70p per share came in June but a recovery in the second half of the year, however, saw the price end 2017 virtually the same as where it started.
Castleton Technology
Starting price: 60
Year low: 55.75 (19 January)
Year high: 70.30 (10 April)
End of year: 66.5
Percentage up/down: +10.8
After experiencing a drop in January and through February, Castleton's share price jumped through March and April, when a trading update said it had hit estimates, and was at its highest through the middle of the year.
In December Castleton announced the acquisition of Australian firm Kinetic Information Systems for £1.7m, shortly after announcing a revenue jump of 10 per cent in its half-year results.
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The best and worst-performing publicly listed resellers of 2017
CRN tracks the 2017 performance of UK resellers trading on the stock exchange
Adept Telecom
Starting price: 275
Year low: 267 (13 January)
Year high: 375 (12 April)
End of year: 312.5
Percentage up/down: +13.6
Adept Telecom's acquisitive streak presumably played a part in its valuation jump last year, with its share price up 13.64 per cent in 2017.
A trading update in April drove the sharpest spike, revealing that EBITDA for its full year would increase 26 per cent, ahead of the 18 per cent previously estimated.
Computacenter
Starting price: 798.5
Year low: 715 (22 March)
Year high: 1153 (29 December)
End of year: 1153
Percentage up/down: +44.4
A recovery in Computacenter's UK business helped the firm's share price to its highest point since 2000, after suffering over the previous few quarters.
Strong results for first, second and third quarters made Computacenter the only firm in this list to finish 2017 on its highest share price of the year, up 44.4 per cent on January's figure.
The biggest jump came on the publication of the firm's half-year results in August, when the UK triggered a price increase of over 15 per cent.
RM
Starting price: 135.75
Year low: 135 (4 January)
Biggest high: 205 (27 December)
End of year: 199.1
Percentage up/down: +46.7
RM saw two explosive share price jumps in 2017, the first of which saw a 35 per cent jump over a couple of days in February, and the second saw a 27 per cent jump over the course of a period in December.
The spike in February was spurred on by the acquisition of the education and care unit from Connect Group for £56.5m. In a trading update posted in December, RM said it expected its results for its financial year to be ahead of expectations, triggering a strong end to the year and culminating in a share price rise of 46.7 per cent.
Softcat
Starting price: 297.1
Year low: 294 (9 January)
Year high: 549 (7 November)
End of year: 520
Percentage up/down: +75
Softcat continued to be the channel's stock exchange success story in 2017, with its share price finishing 75 per cent up on the start of the year.
The reseller's lowest price came in the first few days of the year (9 January) and continued to rise through Q1 and half of Q2, until the announcement of Martin Hellawell's decision to step down stunted the climb.
However, following the publication of its full-year results in October, which saw the reseller report year-on-year revenue growth of 23.8 per cent, the relentless share price rise resumed and remained steady when Graeme Watt was confirmed as CEO-elect.