These half-year results from Telecity (TCY), while impressive, weren't enough to keep investors salivating over prospects for the computer data centre provider. The company's share price slipped 6 per cent in intraday trading following the announcement.
True, demand for Telecity's services shows no sign of a major slowdown. After adding capacity in London, Helsinki and Istanbul during the period, the group ended the half with 867,000 square feet-worth of servers (say, the equivalent of about 30 big supermarkets) crunching out 90 megawatts (MW) of power. And it is on course to bring capacity to 141MW (up from 124MW a year ago). But UK growth slowed to 5 per cent from double digits, while Europe picked up the pace, with 27 per cent growth.
Occupancy levels at the period end also fell slightly to 79.4 per cent, from 81.3 per cent a year earlier, but that largely reflects the substantial increase in capacity delivered over the past 12 months. Revenue per occupied square metre ticked up 4 per cent due to £4,679, thanks to price increases and more computing power delivered. This resulted in a marginally improved gross profit margin of around 46.3 per cent.
Barclays Capital forecasts adjusted pre-tax profit of £95.9m and EPS of37.8p for the current year, rising to £119m and 46.1p in 2014 (from £76.2m and 31p in 2012).
TELECITY (TCY) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD PRICE: | 920p | MARKET VALUE: | £1,864m | |
| TOUCH: | 919-921p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 1,026p | LOW: 765p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 0.9% | PE RATIO: | 31 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 194p* | NET DEBT: | 73% | |
| Half-year to 30 Jun | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 137 | 40.1 | 15.4 | 2.5 |
| 2013 | 159 | 44.0 | 16.4 | 3.5 |
| % change | +16 | +10 | +6 | +40 |
Ex-div: 14 Aug Payment: 20 Sep *Includes intangible assets of £174m, or 86p a share | ||||
