AdEPT Telecom plc (LON:ADT) one of the UK’s leading independent providers of managed services for IT, unified communications, connectivity and voice solutions, is holding its 2017 annual general meeting at 10.00am today at 77 Mount Ephraim, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN4 8BS. At the meeting, the Chairman, Roger Wilson, will make the following statement:-
“I am pleased to report that, in the 6 months to the 30 September 2017, the AdEPT Group continued to make considerable progress in transforming itself from our original Telecoms background into Unified Communications and then into IT, a journey we embarked on in 2015. AdEPT provides a full suite of managed services and is now in an excellent position to take advantage of the continuing convergence between IT and Telecoms.
Although our interim results for the 6 months ended 30 September 2017 are not expected to be published until 14 November 2017, the Board is confident that they will support its progressive dividend growth policy. Therefore, the Directors have declared an interim dividend of 4.25p per Ordinary Share in respect of the 6 months ended 30 September 2017, an increase of 13.3% over the interim dividend of 3.75p for the comparative period.
This dividend will absorb approximately £1.0 million of shareholders’ funds (September 2016: £0.8 million). It is proposed by the Directors that this dividend will be paid on 9 April 2018 to shareholders who are on the register of members on the record date of 16 March 2018.
I look forward to reporting in more detail on the progress being made in integrating our acquisitions at the time of the interim results as well as the other progress which they are achieving. In this context, I am delighted to announce that Comms Group; an Avaya IP Office specialist for smaller customers which we acquired in May 2016, met its performance targets in the 12-month performance-based earn-out period to 31 May 2017. As a result, the vendors hit the maximum earn-out of £3.5 million which was paid in July 2017.
We made our most recent acquisition, Atomwide, in August 2017. Atomwide is a highly accredited IT services provider with over 30 years’ experience, offering highly specialised IT support services and technology solutions to approximately 2 million users in over 4,000 schools. The statutory accounts of Atomwide for the year ended 31 March 2017 reported turnover, operating profit and profit before tax of £7.5 million, £1.9 million and £1.9m respectively. As this acquisition was made part-way through the current financial year, it will therefore be sometime before the positive impact of this acquisition on our run-rate revenues and EBITDA will show in our reported numbers.”
