IT and telecommunications group Altron has posted a headline earnings per share decrease of 29 per cent compared to last year in its annual financial results to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).
Robert Venter, Altron chief executive, highlighted the “disappointing performance” of subsidiary Powertech in the second half of the year, but moved to reassure shareholders by reminding them of the “good news” they had offloaded Altech East and West Africa to Liquid Telecom.
This he said would ensure ZAR151 million (US$16.6 million) of earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) would not repeart itself.
Venter said: “Although Powertech had a disappointing year, it has recently undergone a restructuring and has a number of interesting growth initiatives in the pipeline.
“One of these is the renewables sector which the Government is currently investing in substantially. We are already seeing orders come through for cables and transformers for these projects totalling some R150 million.”
Bytes, the IT services group, was the one of the few highlights of Altron’s performance. It increased revenue by 15 per cent to ZAR7 billion (US$774 million). EBITDA rose by just 1 per cent however to ZAR531 million (US$58.7 million) and headlines earnings remianed at ZAR253 million (US$27.9 million).
Another of Altron’s subsidiaries is Altech had a negative impace on Altron’s overall performance.
HumanIPO reported yesterday Altech’s chief executive Craig Venter had agreed to give up his bonus after a poor annual performance.
Robert Venter added: ““Going forward we will be looking at cross selling opportunities throughout the group but particularly between Bytes and Altech which serve similar industries.
“Our capital allocation between businesses will receive careful consideration in order to extract maximum return on investment.”
