LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Computer services provider Computacenter saw some solid momentum during the first half of its trading year, resulting in the group's pre-tax profits coming in marginally ahead of the previous year.
Computacenter said its "strong" 2019 performance was coming from its established businesses, noting that its recently acquired US business unit had actually underperformed its expectations to date.

"Although it remains profitable and the recent US performance has been encouraging, it has been immaterial to the group and more than compensated by the strong organic performance from the rest of Computacenter," said the Hatfield-based firm.

The FTSE 250-listed group highlighted that the negative impact in 2018 stemming from contract provisions had been "substantially incurred" in the second half of that year, which made the comparative in the second half of 2019 "significantly easier to achieve", assuming it was not repeated. Computacenter predicts provisions on certain contracts will reduce "significantly" in the second half.

"Consequently, Computacenter's board believe that the group's trading result for the financial year 2019 will be materially ahead of current market expectations in both profitability and earnings per share," noted the group.

"Computacenter's board acknowledge, as is the case every year, that there is still a significant amount to do in the second half of the year and we look forward to giving more detail at the announcement of the group's interim results on Friday 23 August."

As of 0845 BST, Computacenter shares had shot up 11.18% to 1,512p.

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