Higher revenue, lower profits for Altron
JSE listed Allied Electronics Corporation Limited (Altron) today announced its annual results for the year ended February 2012. Revenue increased by 3% to R23.6 billion and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) decreased 7% to R1,946 million against the comparative year in 2011.
As a result of a higher than normal tax charge, adjusted diluted headline earnings per share declined 15%.
“Bytes reported excellent results with Altech and Powertech experiencing more challenging times as a result of underperformance of a number of their key operations,” said Altron Chief Executive, Robert Venter.
Bytes was the group’s largest headline earnings contributor, with EBITDA increasing by 11% to R527 million, despite flat revenues of R6.1 billion mainly as a result of the non-recurrence of the National Health Services contract in the United Kingdom.
Altech’s overall results were negatively impacted by significant impairments in the East and West African businesses. Revenue increased by 3% to R9.97 billion while EBITDA declined by 14% to R919 million.
Other operations within the Altech group performed in line with expectations, with the majority reporting good growth figures.
Altech Multimedia returned to profitability, and both Altech Autopage and Altech Netstar, the Altech group’s largest businesses, performed satisfactorily.
The merger of Altech Technology Concepts and Altech Autopage Cellular will soon enable the entity to offer bundled services e.g. converged voice and data to its large client base, while Netstar is assessing international expansion opportunities.
“For the financial year ending 2013, Altron will focus on growing revenue while leveraging off the low cost base that has been achieved over the last few years. This will be done by focusing on both organic growth and further acquisitions while keeping our focus on costs and improving working capital. Special attention will also be paid to getting the currently underperforming businesses back on track,” concluded Venter.
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