CLOUD computing and internet hosting specialist Iomart has signalled it is on course for a near 14 per cent rise in pre-tax profits.
The Glasgow business, headed by chief executive and co-founder Angus MacSween, said it had seen solid organic growth along with good performances from businesses it has acquired.
It bought London-based ServerSpace in a deal worth up to £4.25 million in December and has been highly acquisitive in recent years with its buy-and-build strategy backed by financing from Bank of Scotland.
Iomart said that in the 12 months to March 31 this year it expects to show adjusted pre-tax profit of £16.6m, up from £14.6m.
The adjusted profit figure does not include amortisation charges on intangible assets, acquisition and integration costs and some financing payments.
Iomart also outlined that its adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation will be around £29m, up almost 23 per cent from the £23.6m reported in 2013.
The 2014 figures are in line with market expectations.
The company said its hosting arm had continued to win "a substantial amount of new business".
It said: "The group continues to benefit from the growing adoption of cloud services by organisations that need a strong partner with the necessary infrastructure to provide the certainty, scalability and flexibility they are looking for."
A full-year contribution from Hampshire based Redstation, which Iomart bought for £8m in September 2013, was said to have been beneficial.
A full annual contribution from Leeds company Backup Technology, bought for £23m in what was Iomart's biggest deal at that point and also completed in September 2013, was cited as another factor in the improved figures.
The Easyspace division was said to have performed in line with management expectations during the year.
Mr MacSween, who co-founded Iomart with brother-in-law Bill Dobbie in 1998, said: "Iomart has delivered another solid year of growth.
"The long term opportunity remains very real and Iomart is well positioned to take advantage of growth in the cloud."
The figures suggest Iomart's focus was not swayed even though a £320m takeover deal with Host Europe Holdings, backed by private equity firm Cinven, collapsed in September even after several weeks of talks.
Iomart previously said turnover in the six months to September 30, 2014, rose 28 per cent from £24.6m to £31.5m while adjusted profit before tax grew 27 per cent from £6.3m to £8m.
It has around 350,000 business customers, owns its own network of data centres and has a 1,860 kilometre fibre optic network in the UK.
The client base includes the likes of EMC, Skyscanner, Dell, Stagecoach and Pernod Ricard.
It recently established data centres on the east and west coast of the United States along with establishing a presence in the Far East.
In December Iomart was picked to join Microsoft's cloud computing programme in the UK.
In February it was named in the London Stock Exchange's 1000 Companies to Inspire Britain report.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.Â
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.Â
That is invaluable.Â
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article