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Advanced Computer Software (ACS) confirmed the good tidings of its H1 prelims (see here) when it released interim results for the half year (to August 31 2012), which once again showed progress across all divisions, despite the tough general and public sector market.
Overall revenue jumped to £56.8m, a 20% yoy increase, of which 10% was organic. Its performance shows that ACS’s ‘spend to save’ message is still resonating in both public and private sector markets. Adjusted EBITDA was up 10% to £13.3m, of which 8% was organic growth, and adjusted PBT was up 13% to £11.8m. One of the metrics that was particularly notable was the cash position, which has switched from minus £26.5m this time last year to plus £1.5m and that is despite acquisitions.
Revenue was up 19% in Health and Care to £13m. Success around NHS 111 where ACS is now the preferred supplier to over 80% of the market, and strong progress around the mobile iNurse and iConnect solutions (where signed users are up 54% to 20,000 and on target for 26,000 by year end) are driving this division.
Mobile is a driver across all divisions within the business and revenue is starting to ramp up – from c£0.4m to c£1.5m at the end of H1 (around 275% growth) and set to do much more CEO Vin Murria told us. Along with cloud, it is a key growth engine for the business.
The effect of mobile (and cloud) was also evident in the Advanced Business Solutions division, particularly in relation to BI. The reporting period saw the launch of several products, including Mobile Business Intelligence and Business Intelligence on demand, plus the opening of a development centre in India to build up its BI and mobile BI on demand assets. BI is also tagged as a growth area. The ACS strategy is to provide solutions for its own customer base but also to nibble around the edges of SAP and Oracle accounts to gain new customers, which is something it did with its document management and collaborative planning offerings. Revenue was up 5% to £27.6m (all organic) for the division, which was lower than the other ACS divisions but still beat the general market. With the BI initiative and activity in public sector shared services it has plenty to work with.
365 Managed Services is still pulling ahead. Revenue was up 21% (excluding the Fabric Technologies acquisition), or 59% including it, which took the total to £16.2m. Cross selling to the Business Solutions division has been particularly successful.
Overall, it is another strong set of results for the four-year-old company and with ongoing emphasis on organic growth plus select acquisitions there is more to come.
