CEO says firm was starting to reap rewards of 18-month investment in sales teams
Companies: Softcat Plc
It's been a solid first half of the year for IT infrastructure provider Softcat whose pre-tax profits rose to £20.9m from £15.4m in its interims thanks to impressive growth in software and services.
Revenues jumped nearly 30% to £378.5m with gross profits up 14% to £61.3m after the company, which says it is confident of meeting expectations for the full year, saw customer numbers rise 8.7%.
This is the fastest growth rate since 2014, and CEO Martin Hellawell says it is due to the increased investment the firm has made into sales teams in the past 18 months.
As a result, the firm said it was paying an interim dividend of 2.9p/share, a hefty jump from the 1.7p/share paid out last year, to be paid on 28 April to investors on the register as of 31 March.
Mr. Hellawell said the company had made a significant investment in new sales, services and technical resource over the past year and a half, and was started to see the return on those investments. He added that the Board was confident of meeting its expectations for the full year:
"Whilst trading in the first six weeks of the second half has been strong, we have some important months ahead and we remain focussed on the job in hand."
Softcat shares jumped 4.3% shortly after the market opened on Wednesday hitting its highest level since the Brexit vote on 23 June. The stock has rallied more than 20% since the start of the year and currently trades at a P/E of 18.1.
Softcat is forecasting impressive growth up to 2018, looking to raise revenues from 2016's FY total of £672m to £832m in just two years, with profits also expected to increase more than 30% during that period.
