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Lord Shug ends Viglen ownership with a bang

Directors pocket £1.8m dividend as sales and profit rise by double digits

Lord Shuggie's public sector tech supplier Viglen booked a double digit sales and profit hike in fiscal '13 ended 30 September - the final full financial year under the hirsute walnut's ownership.

After autumn negotiations, the business was offloaded to XMA in January for an undisclosed sum – with chief exec Bordan Tkachuk moving across but chairman The Apprentice bulldog Claude Littner exiting.

The Hertfordshire-based biz, which makes a living out of selling infrastructure kit and software to schools and higher education, grew turnover 11 per cent to £73.2m, and saw profit before tax bounce 15 per cent to £2.4m. Net profit came in at £2.4m, up from £2m.

"Free schools opportunities have grown during 2013 and the pipeline for new business in 2014 is encouraging," the firm stated in an accompanying director report filed at Companies House.

Once again it bagged a seat on the National Desktop and Notebook Agreement (NDNA) that was re-tendered last summer. The framework allows education institutions to place orders directly with Viglen at set Ts&Cs.

"Although the market place within public sector remains challenging the company believes that the frameworks that it is on, together with four ISO accreditations it now holds, put it in a strong place," the report stated.

Viglen also sells to local and central government as well as the emergency services sectors.

Inventory grew four per cent on the previous financial year to £4.9m, due to a "higher level of memory held" largely because Viglen expected prices to rise so bought more while the going was good.

The cash balance dropped £2.1m from £5.8m to £3.7m and debtor days increased by two days to 47. Shareholder funds jumped to £8.3m from £7.75m.

Staffing levels rose to 187 from 176 and the cost of those workers climbed to £7.35m from £6.76m.

The firm coughed a dividend of £2.06m in the fiscal, up from £480k in the previous trading year.

Westcoast Holdings-owned XMA also acquired toner cartridge supplier QC Supplies in January, again for an undisclosed sum.

Yesterday, XMA posted numbers for calendar 2013 with sales up 35 per cent to £164.3m with profit rising to £2.6m from £1.8m a year ago. Gross margin fell one percentage point to 11 per cent. ®

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