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Altron posts R19.2bn revenue

Admire Moyo
By Admire Moyo, ITWeb's news editor.
Johannesburg, 09 May 2019
Altron group chief executive Mteto Nyati.
Altron group chief executive Mteto Nyati.

JSE-listed Altron saw gross revenue increase by 30% to R19.2 billion and normalised earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) by 24% to R1.6 billion from its continuing operations.

The technology company today presented its financial results for the year-ended February. Altron also announced it is tracking almost a year ahead of its goal of doubling EBITDA by year-end 2022.

Founded in 1965, Altron has a direct presence in SA, rest of Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Australia.

Since his appointment in April 2017, group chief executive Mteto Nyati has been pushing forward with plans to revitalise Altron after a number of challenging financial years, including a loss of over R1 billion in total revenue for the year ended 29 February 2016.

"We continue to deliver on our goal of consistant double-digit growth at an EBITDA level besides the ongoing challenging economy," said Nyati in an interview with ITWeb.

"We had a great FY19. The good thing about this set of results is almost all of our operations have performed well. However, our three star performers were Bytes UK, Netstar, as well as our health tech and fintech business Altron Bytes Secure Transactions. These units contributed over 65% revenue."

Nyati also pointed out the disposal of the remaining material non-core assets of the group has been successfully completed.

"We are two years into the One Altron strategy five-year roadmap and have already surpassed our set key milestones, putting us ahead of plan by almost a year.

"Our South African operations have seen EBITDA growth of 15% despite the tough economic climate. We bolstered our rest of Africa operations and this investment delivered EBITDA growth of 41%. European operations have done well with over 80% EBITDA growth."

Commenting on Altron's growth strategy, Nyati said: "Overall, we want to continue to grow organically but will keep looking for bolt-on acquisitions in the areas of data analytics, cloud and IOT; these remain growth drivers for the company."

Talking about the year's highlights, Nyati said: "We also secured key wins in both the private and public sectors. These included, among others, Altron Nexus winning the Gauteng Broadband Network phase two contract worth R2.8 billion, Altron Bytes Systems Integration awarded a R38 million data analytics contract by FNB and Bytes UK won a five-year R2.7 billion contract with the NHS."

During the year, Altron reduced debt, despite investing in future growth. Net debt is R1.6 billion, down from R1.94 billion year-on-year. The company declared a final dividend of 44c per share, with total dividend for the year of 72c per share.

"We have successfully completed the turnaround of Altron through our continued focus on four priorities driving the One Altron strategy: employee excellence, improving profitability, transforming customer experience and revenue growth," Nyati said.

Altron has also strengthened its board through the appointment of Cedric Miller as chief financial officer and Dr Phumla Mnganga as an independent non-executive director.

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