CS Holdings reports another superb innings

Announcing its half-year results for the period ending 31 December 2002, JSE-listed IT Group CS Holdings has once again shown superb growth. Revenue of R240 million over the six-month period represents a 61% growth over the same period for the previous financial year. Headline earnings increased by 46% to R18.9 million while fully diluted headline earnings per share grew by 11%.

According to CS Holdings CEO Annette van der Laan, the group continues to maintain solid business fundamentals, a healthy pipeline, strong client retention and tight fiscal controls.

"We are confident that our strategy is focused and managed in terms of an appropriately integrated business model. This model is geared to perform consistently well in a market where no significant upswing in IT spending is expected over the short term. As an emerging BEE company, CS Holdings is confident that it is strongly positioned to gain market share in a consolidating IT market."

CS Holdings has successfully completed the integration of the acquisitions it made over the past few years to create a single, integrated company. This growth has effectively positioned the CS Holdings Group as a leading outsourcing service provider. The process has also facilitated the growth of CS Holdings` market share, and will enable the group to achieve its objective of becoming one of the top three IT companies in the South African ICT market. This has also resulted in a strong platform for sustainable growth, which will be mainly organic in the long-term.

During the past year, Van der Laan has realigned the company and has also elevated its business model to a much stronger one, one that is more integrated with an extremely strong management team.

"We have a strong drive towards cost-cutting, we believe there are still some excess costs as a result of past structures and acquisitions that are all successfully integrated today. Furthermore, we are moving towards a shared services model where all the corporate support services are being centralised. This will eliminate the duplication that we had in the past when we had three operational companies. I believe that we will see a huge cost reduction in our overhead structures."

On the back of the company`s strong transformation drive to establish CS Holdings as a truly new South African company, significant progress has been made with respect to employment equity - with several key appointments being made. Thuli Zuma, CEO of WAIH, has been appointed as non-executive chairman of the CS Holdings board, adding significant expertise and leadership to the group while satisfying the corporate governance requirement of King II to separate the roles of CEO and chairman. Litha Nyhonyha, CEO of NBC, has joined the CS Holdings board as a non-executive director.

Significant progress has also been made with respect to employment equity - with several key appointments being made. Makhuperetja Nyama has been appointed as an executive director of CS Holdings. In addition, Nonie Mokose has joined CS Holdings as Group Marketing Director, and Leba Mashao as Group Human Resources Director. These key appointments, among others, have strengthened the company`s strategy to have a balanced representative complement of first and second line management. Employment equity targets continue to be achieved at all levels. The validation of the transformation efforts of the group has been seen in the form of CS Holdings being awarded the BMI-T African Achievers Award for the Most Progressive ICT Company for 2002.