Computacenter shares were down 8.7% to 2,47.4p in early morning trading on Friday, after the group announced a drop in pre-tax profits to £107.8 million in HY1 2022 compared to £115.2 million HY1 2021.
The company said it remained on track to deliver its management expectations for profit growth in FY 2022, however.
Computacenter reported revenues of £2.8 billion against £2.4 billion, alongside Technology Sourcing revenues of £2 billion from £1.7 billion and Services revenue of £752.5 million against £706.1 million in the previous year.
The technology firm mentioned a gross invoiced income of £3.9 billion compared to £3.2 billion, with £3.2 billion in Technology Sourcing gross invoiced income.
Computacenter confirmed an EPS of 67.3p against 70.7p year-on-year.
“As we have predicted and announced on multiple occasions, profitability for Computacenter was down in the first half of 2022 compared to the same period last year, however, we remain on track to deliver our stated expectations of profit growth for the year as a whole,” said Computacenter CEO Mike Norris.
The group noted cash and cash equivalents of £193.5 million compared to £158.5 million, with adjusted net funds of £159.3 million from £121.8 million, net funds of £12.1 million against a net debt of £29.4 million and net cash inflow from operating activities of £8.1 million from £1.5 million.
“With the exception of networking products where difficulties still remain, supply chain challenges have eased materially in the last 3 months. However, our customers have become extremely sensitive about supply chain shortages, and as such require us to hold more inventory, impacting our balance sheet,” said Norris.
“In almost all cases there is a guaranteed sale on the inventory items. The continuing strength of our balance sheet gives us a significant competitive advantage in being able to support our customers’ requirements in this manner. How this will unravel as customers get used to the freeing up of supply remains to be seen.”
“While the pandemic has accelerated new ways of working the major effects of Covid-19 are firmly behind us and we believe current market conditions are the new normal. Our customers commitment to investment in technology feels extremely robust despite well publicised and difficult economic conditions around the world. This gives us confidence for 2023 and beyond.”
Computacenter hiked its dividend to 22.1p in HY1 2022 compared to 16.9p the last year.