Computacenter Share Chat (CCC)

'Significant new business wins to incur additional start-up costs in 2012' Computacenter plc, Europe's leading independent provider of IT infrastructure services, today publishes a trading update and outlook for the full year, based on unaudited information. As we stated at the time of our Interim Management Statement on 18 April 2012, Services revenue growth has increased substantially and is likely to have grown in excess of 15% at a Group level, in constant currency, during the first half of 2012. This is clearly an acceleration, compared to the 11% growth rate experienced in the first quarter. As we look forward into the rest of the year, we see no indications that this growth rate will moderate, as it is underpinned by contracts already won, as well as a substantial new business pipeline. We expect that our Supply Chain business will experience high single digit growth for H1 2012 and while there are sectors of challenging market conditions, such as investment banking in the UK and the public sector in France, caused by the uncertainty around the changes in their Government, investment by our customers in capital expenditure projects, remains satisfactory. We are clearly pleased with the substantial Services growth rate, which is testament to the commercial market's appetite for Computacenter's offerings and our track record of excellent execution for our clients. However, it has become apparent to the Board that the significant amount of new business growth requires material investment through our P&L, to deliver successful take-on of the new business and drive high customer satisfaction to underpin Computacenter's success in the years ahead. The take-on cost of this new business includes, but is not limited to, the recruitment of over 700 new Services personnel and the transfer of many staff from customers and their historical suppliers. Clearly, there are material recruitment and training costs for these new starters. Our investment in systems, both back office and customer facing, has also been substantial. Understandably, we are seeing these capital investments increase our depreciation costs. The new business has also attracted significant costs associated to sales commissions, which are predominately paid up-front. These incremental investments to support our future growth are likely to cost Computacenter in the region of an additional £7 million in 2012, compared with our previous expectations. It should also be noted that the depreciation of the euro against sterling, if it were to remain at the current level, would impact Computacenter's profit in 2012 by approximately an additional £3 million.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201206140700133337F

Services Continue To Deliver For Computacenter The services business continues to deliver for Computacenter with the long-term picture looking rosy for the channel player, despite some current margin erosion. The firm revealed the state of its affairs in an interim management statement that indicated that since the start of the year its services business has increased by 9%, the same level as overall group revenue had climbed by. Some margin erosion had happened with the services business because of the on-boarding of contracts but the expectation was that in the long-term this would settle down and not be a feature. Specifically in the UK the revenues remained flat with an 8% increase in services revenue but a continued weakness in the supply chain revenue, which suffered a 5% decline. "Whilst Government IT expenditure remains weak, we have previously explained that this does not have a material effect on our profitability. We have however seen a capital spending freeze during the period, from many of our investment banking customers and this adverse customer and product mix has had a negative effect on our profit," the firm stated. http://www.microscope.co.uk/technology/services/services-continue-to-deliver-for-computacenter/ P.S. Here's a couple of links about SCLP, one of the hottest stocks at the moment: http://www.euroinvestor.com/community/discussionthread.aspx?threadid=252803 http://www.euroinvestor.com/community/discussionthread.aspx?threadid=253089

How Computacenter provides hosting options for customers who like their data and networks managed for them. More and more business users are opting for this; reducing there site requirements to encrypted links to an outsourced data centre from simple inexpensive terminals thus eliminating the considerable cost of having their own dedicated network infrastructure. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l6LgJeL95U&feature=relmfu

Service Centres: Remote Infrastructure Management A video describing how Computacenter helps clients resolve I.T. infrastructure problems remotely: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdqr5Ou_RLg&feature=relmfu

Case study: Eversheds and Computacenter This video describes how Computacenter's services are used by a global law firm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc_dQk8W660&feature=relmfu

Looking very good at the moment and good to see some dds taking place - a long term slow but reliable burner!

Computacenter Buy 11-Apr-12 £26,917.33 Greg Lock 6,562 @ 410.20p

UPDATE 1-Computacenter confident after strong 2011 13 March 2012 07:28 FY adj pretax up 12.4 pct to 74.2 mln stg Says confident of further progress in 2012 (Adds details) LONDON, March 13 (Reuters) – IT company Computacenter posted a 12.4 percent rise in profit, its sixth consecutive year of double-digit profit growth, helped by its French and German customers upgrading IT infrastructure as demand in Britain went into reverse. The British group, which supplies equipment and services, on Tuesday reported adjusted pretax profit of 74.2 million pounds ($115.9 million) on revenue up 6.6 percent to 2.85 billion pounds, broadly in line with market expectations. Chief Executive Mike Norris said there was strong demand for the group's services and the new business pipeline meant 2012 looked potentially as exciting as 2011. "The board believes that despite the current economic climate, there would need to be further deterioration in this environment for its expectations not to be met this year and the Board is confident of achieving further progress during 2012," he said. The company is paying a total dividend for 2011 of 15.0 pence per share, up 13.6 per cent ($1 = 0.6404 British pounds) (Reporting by Paul Sandle)

The most manipulated stock on the market I think. Looking forward to the results tomorrow so I can be put out my misery of having to put up with these irrational price moves

Either that or some insider trading is taking place ahead of Mondays results. If the Monday results are poor we'll know the past few days have been insider trading.

Are the MM's having a luagh with this one?

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/Computacenter-Holding-Company-afxcnf-1306192071.html http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/computacenter-recent-contract-wins-093400748.html

Shame really - This is a solid share. http://www.cio.co.uk/news/3329280/computacenter-helps-jaguar-supplier-deploy-ibm-san/ Thats news from today. Expecting strong results out tomorrow!! Good luck all holders!

Update on Managed Services Contract Wins 16 December, 2011 At the time of our Interim Results announcement on 30 August 2011 and again, at our Interim Management Statement on 14 October 2011, we referred to a substantial new business pipeline for our Managed Services business, predominantly in the UK. We are pleased to announce that the majority of these prospects have now reached a satisfactory conclusion. When fully operational, these Managed Services contracts will deliver cumulative revenue of approximately £60 million per annum and may lead to additional revenues from services projects and product pull through. The contractual revenue will grow from now, reaching the full run rate by the second half of 2012, with the majority of these contracts lasting for five years, when fully operational. There are six material Managed Services contracts that we have won across a number of industry sectors, including both domestic and multinational customers. These contracts include a desktop outsource with a large UK retailer, a desktop outsource with a major international bank in the UK, a global client support contract, including helpdesk, with a leading pharmaceutical company, another global client support contract with a global manufacturer with a head office in the UK, a pan European desk-side services contract with a global industrial company and a comprehensive infrastructure outsource with a UK mutual insurer. These Managed Services contract wins, together with others secured in France and Germany, clearly demonstrate Computacenter's ability to deliver cost effective and robust outsourced solutions for customers and help to underpin the Board's expectations for 2012 and beyond. The wins announced today however, will make little contribution to 2011. While much remains to be done in the critical last weeks of the year, the business remains on track for the Board's 2011 expectations. Our next scheduled trading update will be the pre-close briefing, scheduled for 12 January, 2012.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201112160934391301U

UK remains a drag on Computacenter growth Date: Friday 14 Oct 2011 LONDON (ShareCast) - Information technology services provider Computacenter is on track to meet its full-year targets after third quarter continued on much the same lines as the first two quarters. Revenue growth for the quarter, on a reported basis, increased by 5% to £652m from £621m in the corresponding quarter of last year, but this included contributions from recent acquisitions; with those contributions stripped out, revenue declined by 1% year-on-year (YOY). Revenue growth in the first nine months of the year was 6% to £2.02bn from £1.90bn in the first nine months of 2010. With the effects of acquisitions excluded, revenue grew 2% from last year. Group Services revenue grew by 6% YOY in the third quarter, including acquisitions, and by 2% excluding acquisitions, bringing the year-to-date position to 6% and 4% respectively. Group Product revenue grew by 4% YOY in the third quarter, including acquisitions, with a decline of 3% excluding acquisitions, bringing the year-to-date position to a growth rate of 6% and 1% respectively. Revenue in the UK declined by 15% YOY to £234m, with the Product division's revenue tumbling 20%, though this represents an improvement on the 22% YOY decline seen in the first half of the year. The group said the fall-off can largely be accounted for by a shift in the spending profiles of some of its larger customers. Services revenue in the UK fell 6% YOY, a decline solely attributable to the Professional Services business, where a fall-off in large construction projects has caused a slump in demand for cabling. The picture is brighter in Germany and France, which saw revenue growth rates in the third quarter of 19% and 28% respectively, though France would have seen a 2% decline in revenues YOY had it not been for the effects of the company's recent acquisition in the country. On the subject of acquisitions, the group said its purchase of Switzerland-based Damax in the third quarter is looking like a winner, with the company trading ahead of expectations. At the end of the third quarter, net cash excluding customer specific financing was roughly £101m, compared to £107m at the end of third quarter of 2010 and £139m at the end of December 2010. "The prospects within the new business pipeline that we referred to in the group's interim results have either reached a successful conclusion, or are progressing encouragingly," Computacenter said. "While there are clearly no certainties, we are confident that 2011 will prove to be the most successful year in Computacenter's journey by delivering record growth rates in our contractual services business that will underpin growth in the years ahead," the statement concluded.

Group Outlook We remain on track to deliver a performance in line with the Board's expectations for the year as a whole. As the Board has stated previously, comparisons with 2010 are more challenging towards the end of the year, but we continue to be confident that 2011 will be another year of progress for Computacenter. The prospects within the new business pipeline that we referred to in the Group's Interim results have either reached a successful conclusion, or are progressing encouragingly. While there are clearly no certainties, we are confident that 2011 will prove to be the most successful year in Computacenter's journey by delivering record growth rates in our contractual services business that will underpin growth in the years ahead. . Our next scheduled trading update will be the pre-close briefing, prior to our annual results, which is scheduled for 12 January 2012.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201110140700101619Q

Goldman Sachs upgrades Computacenter from neutral to buy, target price raised from 525p to 575p.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201108300700151551N

Mike Norris, the chief executive of Computacenter, claims to be more pleased by the successful transition of the group’s British operations to a new IT programme, which went live yesterday morning, than he is with interim figures yesterday, says the Tempus team at the Times. But the upgrade, which follows a similar process in Germany and with France soon to follow, does remove a block on the group making further significant acquisitions, even if a small French deal was completed in April. The company has a little more than GBP100 million in the bank and available to spend. Across the group, profits before tax were 24.9 per cent higher at GBP26.6 million. The interim dividend is raised by 1p to 4½p, which will please the two founders who still own about half the shares and gives these, up 4.6p to 374.1p last night, the support of a decent 4 per cent yield. They sell on about ten times’ this year’s earnings and at least merit a strong hold, suggests the Times

Computacenter to buy Swiss IT services provider Date: Thursday 21 Jul 2011 LONDON (ShareCast) - Information technology (IT) infrastructure services and solutions provider Computacenter has acquired an 80% stake in Swiss IT services provider DAMAX for a debt free cash consideration of £54m. Under the deal terms, Computacenter has acquired 80% of the equity, as well as over £1.5m net cash of the balance sheet. The remaining 20% in DAMAX will be held by the founder of the business, who will continue as chief executive officer. Computacenter said it will acquire the remainder of the equity stake by mid-2015 for about £2.4m, which is subject to the achievement of agreed performance criteria over the next three-and-a-half years. Shares of the AIM-listed company, which had inched higher in earlier in the trading session, slipped back to trade at 460p in London.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=20110721083700H2528

Computacenter cheered analysts yesterday with what Panmure Gordon termed a "very pleasing" update. Profitability in the first half of the year will be "comfortably ahead of the same period last year", it said. The six months to the end of December saw revenue growth of 6 per cent, with the company showing strong growth in France and Germany. On the downside, the fly in the ointment was weak product revenues from clients in the financial services industry, which contributed to a slightly disappointing performance in the UK market. Offsetting that, the company's outlook was solid, as it remains on track to meet full-year hopes, despite being held back in the second half by an increase in its depreciation charge. Buy, recommends the Independent.