Profits surge at Glasgow cloud computing group Iomart

Iomart, the Glasgow-based cloud computing and web hosting specialist, today said its profits jumped by almost a quarter during the first half of its financial year.
Iomart chief Angus MacSween said trading in the first half had been 'very good'. Picture: ContributedIomart chief Angus MacSween said trading in the first half had been 'very good'. Picture: Contributed
Iomart chief Angus MacSween said trading in the first half had been 'very good'. Picture: Contributed

The Aim-quoted firm posted an adjusted pre-tax profit of £10.6 million for the six months to the end of September, an increase of 23 per cent on the figure of £8.7m recorded for the same period last year.

Revenues rose 16 per cent to £42.1m, and Iomart said it was committed to pursuing further acquisitions, having paid £3.8m for Gloucestershire-based data storage and back-up outfit Cristie in August.

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Iomart eyes profit rise amid '˜strong' cloud demand
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Chief executive Angus MacSween said: “Trading in the first half of the year has been very good and we remain focused on building our recurring revenues in line with our business model.

“We are uncovering an increasing breadth of opportunities to constantly grow that recurring revenue and remain confident in our future prospects.”

MacSween told The Scotsman that the deal to buy Cristie, which has built a “significant” presence in the public sector market, was a “fairly opportunistic purchase” for Iomart, which employs 380 people, of whom about 150 are based north of the Border.

He added: “They had a very loyal customer base in the public sector, about 150 to 200 customers, and the cunning plan is to sell them cloud services in the future, as well as continuing to sell them storage. It indicates the long-term nature of the opportunity, because there are still loads of organisations having big storage arrays delivered to their front doors in vans – the idea that everything is moving to the cloud overnight is just a little bit naive. The world of IT moves very slowly and very carefully.”

But Paraag Amin, an analyst at house broker Peel Hunt, said that the increased take-up of cloud computing services “continues to be at the centre of attention within IT departments” and pointed to the “long-term and large market opportunity” for the company.

Describing today’s results as “reassuringly solid”, Amin added: “The IT environment has become more complex, with more choice, and Iomart sees a growing requirement for the skills associated with cloud adoption.”

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