Unstoppable reseller juggernaut Softcat claims its top and bottom lines swelled 40 per cent in its first half of fiscal 2013 under the leadership of MD Colin Brown who joined from Microsoft last year.

Martin Hellawell, veteran of the fast growing Marlow-based biz moved upstairs to the chairman's office last autumn to replace Peter Kelly who took a non-exec role.

But it seems the handover over to Brown, formerly head of Microsoft's public sector business in the UK, has gone smoothly. Hellawell revealed that sales had hit £190m - ahead of expectations.

"The budget for the year [that ends 31 July 2013] was to grow to £365m, £1m for every day of the year," Hellawell told The Channel.

In fiscal 2012 Softcat's turnover was £306m, compared to £219.2m in the previous year, and made a net profit of £22m compared to £11.5m.

Hellawell said the bottom line had also jumped 40 per cent in H1 of this fiscal period above the same period a year earlier.

The sweet spots - managed services, networking and security - chugged along nicely but weren't the brightest burning parts of the portfolio. "Hardware and software stood out for us," he said.

"It's a tough business climate," said Hellawell, "but the bit I was most surprised about was that the supposedly boring software licensing, servers and storage run rate businesses were extremely strong".

In the past six months, Softcat has taken on another 100 staffers, mostly under the graduate training programme, and plans to move into new offices in Moorgate to accommodate growth plans, the chairman said. ®