Johannesburg - GijimaAst Group (GIJ) on Wednesday reported a 111 percent rise in headline earnings per share to 11.7 cents for the year ended June 2008 from 5.54 cents a year ago. Diluted HEPS rose to 11.43 cents from 5.54 cents before.
The ICT company said its good earnings performance and sound liquidity position prompted the board's decision to declare a cash dividend of 3.5 cents per share, up 133 percent on last year's maiden dividend of 1.5 cents.
Revenue grew 25 percent to R2.5 billion and operating profit was up by 81 percent to R171 million.
The group said its 25 percent increase in revenue was driven by growth in its managed services and professional services units. Its application products business unit more than doubled its revenue for the year and networks and enterprise resource planning (ERP) business units also delivered excellent performance and GMSI continued to grow strongly in the international market.
Application products, networks, ERP and GMSI performed at an outstanding level, all with operating profit increases in the order of 100 percent and above, the group said.
However, performance by the availability services and Microsoft business units was disappointing and steps have been taken to reverse this trend.
A further weakening of the rand during the year resulted in a significant foreign exchange translation gain of R48 million, mainly from the group's foreign operations.
The group also announced that executive chairman Robert Gumede, who has fulfilled an executive role for the last three years since the merger of Gijima and AST, is to relinquish his executive duties not that the company is on a sound platform to deliver future value.
He will remain non-executive chairman in order to focus on his entrepreneurial company, Guma Group from 1 November.
He will also remain invested in GijimaAst through Guma Group's 37 percent shareholding and will continue to offer his services to the company.
During the year, the board contemplated a potential corporate transaction. However, negotiations were terminated and the cautionary announcement withdrawn, when it was clear that key stakeholders from both sides were unable to reach agreement on the business model which would have ensued going forward.
The group said the ICT industry remains buoyant despite the generally subdued domestic economy. Opportunities in the sector include the government's infrastructure investment programme, driven by the demand for improved service delivery, as well as the pursuit of increased efficiencies across the private sector.
"Our brand has gained recognition in all our chosen areas of focus, as demonstrated by the strong deal flow during 2008. This has created a solid base for profitable growth, positioning us to meet our revenue growth targets which will enable us to further diversify our revenue profile, both in terms of industry and client profile," it said.
Given this deal flow, it continues to focus on strengthening its project delivery capability. Its strategic partnership models and learnership programmes with leading educational institutions continue to provide it with the required technical skills to deliver on these projects, the group said.