Pinnacle lifts dividend 17%
JSE listed ICT equipment distributor, Pinnacle Technology on Thursday (5 September) reported a 13% rise in revenue for the year ended June 2013, to R6.6 billion, aided by contributions from some newly acquired entities in the group’s Africa division.
Headline earnings per share increased 17% to 205.6 cents, while earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization increased by 18% to R493 million.
Pinnacle said that dividends per share increased by 17% to 41 cents, from 35 cents before.
“The board considers this to be a satisfactory result in a period in which trading conditions remained tough due to the economic situation, both in South Africa and throughout the world,” the group said.
Centrafin, Pinnacle’s financial services division, delivered net profit growth of 47%, whilst Infrasol, the ICT services division, struggled to repeat the growth experienced in the last financial year due to some large projects not materialising in time.
Pinnacle said that Centrafin continues to grow its book strongly, currently at R270 million from R150 million a year ago. The funding for the book was supplied by the listing of Pinnacle’s first issue of R315 million notes under its Domestic Medium Term Bond Programme at the end of April 2013.
The group cautioned that core ICT spending in the market during the second half of the year had been “tight”, particularly in the retail sector where both margins and volumes were under pressure due to the decline in consumer demand.
It noted that promising growth was experienced in value added areas including security, cabling, racking and automation, which supported margin improvement.
Looking ahead, Pinnacle said that the overall economy faces challenging times ahead, with the consumer becoming more financially constrained than ever and the resources sector, the bedrock of the South African industry, bedevilled by labour and demand issues.
“Nonetheless, the IT sector has remained resilient in the face of these and other economic challenges and it is envisaged that it will continue to remain reasonably so,” the group said.
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