Redcentric's revenues slip for six months ending 30 September

Total revenue decreased by 4.1 per cent to £44.3m compared with the same period last year while adjusted operating profit also fell

MSP Redcentric saw its sales and adjusted operating profit slip for the six months ending 30 September, with CEO Peter Brotherton claiming that the business is still seeing "aftershocks" from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Total revenue slipped by 4.1 per cent to £44.3m compared with the same period last year while adjusted operating profit fell from £7.6m to £7.4m, a fall of 2.6 per cent.

Adjusted basic earnings per share also fell from 3.61p to 3.55p year-on-year, while recurring monthly revenue dropped from £41m to £39.6m and adjusted EBITDA decreased from £12.3m to £11.9m.

But Brotherton said the business is still "performing well", pointing to the MSP's improved sales and profits during the pandemic compared with before it.

"The business continues to perform well and is trading significantly ahead of the pre-Covid period," he said.

"Throughout the period of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have grown revenues and increased profits substantially. The pandemic has presented many unprecedented challenges and we continue to see the aftershocks.

"The sales pipeline is slowly recovering, and the increasing number of customer interactions is encouraging. November 2021 is on target to be the best month for new sales orders this calendar year and we are hopeful that this is indicative of a return to more normalised trading levels.

"The company will continue to pursue acquisition opportunities for both scale and capability and the board expects the full year results to be in line with its expectations."

Redcentric announced it was acquiring Microsoft Azure and AWS partner Piksel in September, which the MSP claims will "significantly enhance" its cloud services proposition.

The company claims that £0.7m of annualised cost savings have already been realised through the acquisition and further annualised savings of at least £0.4m are to be realised for the next financial year.

"The strategically important acquisition of Piksel completes our cloud services offering and gives us full access to the highest growing areas of the market," Brotherton added.

"After just six weeks, the integration of Piksel is significantly ahead of plan with £0.7m of annualised synergies already realised and confidence in delivering further substantial savings."

The AIM-listed MSP has also announced the appointment of Nick Bate as independent non-executive chairman of the company following Ian Johnson's decision to step down.