Steady as she goes at Computacenter

Computacenter said today it had a decent enough 2006, and expects to report pre-tax profits of £38.2m before exceptional charges, in line with market expectations.

The firm said a move away from lower margin volume sales had improved overall income as the year progressed.

Computacenter's services division slightly improved its contribution to revenues too.

Performance on the continent suffered because of a new shared datacentre services contract in Germany, and a broader malaise in France. The German contract was offset by very good product sales in the fourth quarter, which Computacenter attributed to buying ahead of forthcoming changes to VAT.

The firm incurred an exceptional charge of £2m across in France as it sought reduce losses there in 2007, and a £2.5m exceptional charge was taken writing down the value of fixed assets in the country.

Net cash at the end of the fiscal year is expected to be £25m, before funding the acquisition of South African data centre firm Digica. Computacenter expects to deliver its 2006 results on March 13. ®