Flat revenues at acquisitive Daisy

LANCASHIRE telecoms group Daisy has completed another acquisition, but sales were flat last year and losses widened.

In its full-year figures it said it had bought Nottingham-based Layer 3, a wifi specialist. The deal completed at the end of May.

In the the group’s last financial year it spent £35.3m in cash on four acquisitions which chief executive Matthew Riley said were performing ahead of expectations.

Despite the deals, the Nelson-based group reported a marginal 0.3% increase in revenues to £352.7m, while pre-tax losses increased by 3.4% to £24.3m.

But it pointed to an increase in adjusted earnings, before, interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of nearly 3% to £57.9m, and a 2.6% increase in the gross profit margin to 39.5%.

The company said its retail business performed well with a number of long-term managed services contract wins, and it signed a new mobile carrier agreement with improved margins.

Mr Riley said: “We have made good progress during the year from both an organic and inorganic perspective. The acquisitions we have made are performing ahead of expectations and help to provide a better balanced product portfolio mix, which positions us well for the continued convergence of IT and communications.  

“In addition to those in the period, post year end we completed the acquisition of Layer 3, the WiFi and LAN specialist which will complement the product offering in both our retail and wholesale divisions.

“Looking forward, we expect to continue with our inorganic strategy alongside our key organic objective of cross-selling. Changes to our bank facilities have increased the headroom available for further accretive acquisitions and notwithstanding our desire to pursue these acquisitions, the board will consider the return of capital by way of share buybacks to maintain an efficient capital structure.”

Daisy has proposed a final dividend of 3.1p, taking the full-year payout to 4.6p, up 15%.