Profits up at Kcom as it signs Daisy deal
TELECOMS group Kcom has firmly moved into recovery with pre-tax profits climbing 64% as it cashes in on core strengths and strategic partnerships.
The Hull-based group also announced that it has signed a three year contract with North West-based Daisy Group.
The deal will see Kcom provide Daisy with inbound call handling and routing services via Myriad – the firm’s advanced call routing and voice response platform.
Pre-tax profits for the group for the year ended March 31 rose to £29.4m compared to £17.9m for the previous year.
Continued strong cash generation has reduced bank borrowings by £41.1m to £116.8m.
Restructuring costs and the planned exit of low margin commodity-based operations has reduced revenue however to £412.8m from £472.4m for the same period 2009.
Kcom said that it was increasing the proposed final dividend to 1.25p – up from 1p on the previous year.
Bill Halbert, Kcom’s executive Chairman. said “Kcom group has made excellent progress since our November 2008 strategic review in improving the quality of our business activities and the underlying financial strength of the group.
“In the second year of the group’s transformation, we are well placed now to begin to grow both our Kingston Communications and Kcom businesses. We will achieve this by leveraging our core strengths and capability which are supported by our new strategic partnerships.”
The group has achieved a number of significant milestones over the last financial year including the creation of two business units – Kingston Communications and managed communications business Kcom.
Agreements with BT Wholesales and Phoenix IT Group have given it access to national network coverage as well as market leading products and field support services.
Earlier in the year it announced the implementation of a £2.8m IP core upgrade programme designed to improve network performance and new services such as new Karoo broadband packages and KC Cloud – a range of business services delivering Microsoft applications via broadband.
Kcom said that its focus would now be a return to growth and to provide medium term certainty around its pension funding position.
