The broad size and shape of Computacenter’s half-time results has already had a pretty good airing over the past couple of months, what with the mid-June profit warning (see How Computacenter got contract indigestion) and the mid-July H1 preview (see Computacenter’s “fantastic” first half services growth). So the 19 pages in today’s formal results were largely used to dot the considerable number of I’s and cross the considerable number of T’s. But there were a few new snippets – and some dangling question marks – which are worthy of mention.
But first, a quick sprint though the numbers which were much as presaged. Headline revenues (to 30th June) grew by 4.2% (7.6% at constant exchange rates) to £1.42b, essentially organic. Gross margins eased by 40bps yoy to 12.7%, and operating margins were squeezed by 50bps to 1.4%, mostly on account of the well-publicised ‘oops we grew too fast’ services debacle in Germany. Net net, EPS plummeted by 21% to 10.0p. Services revenues grew by 12% and now comprise 32% of the total, up from 29% in H1 2011 and for the whole of 2011. And as ever, Computacenter is still awash with (net) cash, to the tune of £102m.
And so to the ‘worthy of mentions’, which include:
- A £50m, 5-year global desktop services contract with Rolls Royce (that must have annoyed HP – RR used to be a flagship client of the late EDS).
- Some useful UK public sector contracts (yes, they are still spending)
- A £2m+ p.a. contract with a retail bank (they are too)
And as for the dangling question marks:
- Will the implementation of the Group-wide ERP system ever end? It’s already running a year late and well over its original £25m budget (see Computacenter’s faith in ERP sorely tested).
- What’s happening with Computacenter’s push into data centre services? There was mention of a client renewing a contract, but is their shiny new-ish Tier 4 data centre in Romford yet washing its face?
- And what about ‘C3’, Computacenter’s bold venture into ‘true’ cloud services? Has its feet left the ground yet?
I don’t want to seem too churlish as frankly Computacenter is the class act in its space. But we wouldn’t want CEO Mike Norris to get too complacent, would we.