Computacenter sees share price rocket despite US business 'underperforming'

Services giant forecasts positive second half of the year after strong Q2

Computacenter's share price jumped 11 per cent after it reported a strong second quarter.

The firm said that its US business was profitable in the three-month period ending 30 June, but had underperformed against expectations.

The services giant last year made its first foray into the North American market with the acquisition of FusionStorm in a deal worth up to $90m (£74m).

The firm did not report specific figures for revenue or individual geographies.

"The strong 2019 performance is coming from Computacenter's established businesses," the report stated.

"The acquired business in the US has underperformed our expectations to date.

"Although it remains profitable and the recent US performance has been encouraging, it has been immaterial to the group and more than compensated by the strong organic performance from the rest of Computacenter."

The company said it experienced a "continued momentum" in its Technology Sourcing business during its Q2, resulting in adjusted profit before tax to be marginally ahead of H1 2018.

Computacenter also forecast a positive second half to the year, as the contract provisions that negatively affected the same period in 2018 are expected to decline.

"The negative impact in 2018 due to contract provisions was substantially incurred in the second half of that year, which makes the comparative in the second half of 2019 significantly easier to achieve if this is not repeated," the firm stated.

"The group considers that, based on the current information, the provisions on certain contracts will reduce significantly in the second half of 2019 and this forms part of a recent encouraging re-forecast of the second half of the year reviewed by the board."