LONDON (Alliance News) - Coms PLC Monday said it swung to a profit in the year to end-January, driven by a number of acquisitions in its first year under its new chief executive.
Coms reiterated confidence in meeting market estimates for revenue and pretax profit in the 2015 financial year, although it cautioned that one-off re-organisation costs may hit its performance in the first half. Despite this, the company said these costs will be fully recovered in the second half, bringing its performance back in line with market expectations.
The cloud-based telephony company posted a pretax profit of GBP1.2 million in the year ended January 31, swinging from a loss of GBP936,415 in the previous year, as revenue rose to GBP14 million from GBP1.6 million, driven by growth from acquisitions.
Coms appointed Chief Executive David Brieth in January 2013, and said that since his appointment the company had undertaken a re-organisation and an aggressive merger and acquisition strategy.
It made 10 acquisitions during the year, including Comunica Group Ltd and Redstone Converged Solutions Ltd in November. Coms said that the "true" impact of the Redstone acquisition had not yet been recognised, but it will add to earnings going forward.
The company won a contract with MITIE Group PLC in April 2013, but said it had seen very little revenues from the contract during the year as the rolling out of the project had been "a lot slower than anticipated". Coms said that following discussions it has been able to resolve these issues, and remained confident the contract would benefit its 2014/15 and 2015/16 financial years.
The company said it had successfully integrated the newly acquired businesses, removing duplicated costs, and said further savings will be identified as it integrates the businesses further and becomes more efficient.
Coms said that it would continue to asses both organic growth as well as merger and acquisition opportunities.
Shares in Coms were trading down 6.6% at 6.33 pence Monday morning, having touched an intraday low of 5.86p.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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