From time to time I like to take a peek at the fortunes of the somewhat tarnished Netherlands IT services ‘national hero’ Ordina, partly to see if it’s still in business (it is) and also because the Benelux market is important to many UK players too.
After recording substantial net losses last year (see Ordina – on the one hand, on the other hand), there’s a better story to tell at half-time (to 30th June) in so far as losses have declined significantly to €1.7m on revenues of €201.9m, which were down nearly 8% yoy.
The revenue decline was pretty much across the board, with Public Sector/Healthcare (40% of total) down 7%, Financial Services (32% of total) down 4%, and Industry (other private sector – the remaining 28%) down 13%. Ordina’s worst hit service line was Consulting, down 21%, though this comprises less than 10% of total revenues. The only service line that managed to keep its head above water was ‘Business Solutions’ (BI et al) which grew by just 1% but is even smaller than the Consulting division.
Ordina is materially smaller than the Benelux divisions of both Atos and Capgemini, both of which are profitable. Logica’s Benelux division (i.e. the erstwhile CMG, and now under the wing of CGI Central & Eastern Europe head – and ex-Logica COO – Serge Dubrana) was of similar size to Ordina, was also shrinking and was also loss-making.
You might have seen CGI CEO, Michael Roach’s rather triumphalist interview in the Financial Times yesterday, in which he expressed an interest in further acquisitions in order to become the one of the “five or six (global IT services) companies (that will be) left in this sector”. With a market cap of a not much over €90m, he could surely pick up Ordina for far less than the £1.7b he paid for Logica and double CGI’s business in Benelux in the process. That would only leave the small matter of how to turn two losses into a profit.