Earnings for the first half of the year will be almost two-thirds lower than a year ago, due to slower spending and once-off acquisition costs, says Business Connexion (BCX).
A year ago, BCX reported diluted earnings per share of 27.8c, while diluted headline earnings per share were 27.3c.
Yesterday's news sent its share price down to close at R5.30, a 35c or 6.19% decline on Friday's close.
BCX explains that the main reason for the decline in earnings is because there was a delay in infrastructure and project spending during the first six months of the year.
In addition, BCX issued 41 million more shares as part of its empowerment transaction, which resulted in more shares being in issue compared with a year ago. BCX also incurred R6.2 million in expenses relating to its takeover of some of UCS's assets and spent another R4.4 million on merger and acquisition deals.
In January, BCX said it was buying out the bulk of retail specialist UCS's business, in a deal worth R614.2 million. UCS sold five service business units to BCX: Accsys, CEB Maintenance Africa, Destiny Electronic Commerce, UCS Solutions, and UCS Technology Services.
BCX's results are expected to be published on 14 April.
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