Telford-based Nasstar sees fruits of strategic plan as margins increase in full-year results
Cloud computing specialist Nasstar saw narrowed losses and improved margins in its full-year results as its strategy began to bear fruit.
The Telford-based IT services provider reported a reduced loss before tax of £1.2 million from £1.8 million the year before on revenues of £24.5 million, up from £18.7 million previously.
The group also saw margins on its adjusted underlying earnings increase to 23 per cent from 20 per cent the year before, while it also ended the year with net cash of £1 million, ahead of expectations and up from a net debt of £2.8 million previously.
Nasstar said the year had been focused on integrating its business following three years of acquisition activity, with the 'Nasstar 10-19' plan implementing a top to bottom organisational structure redesign to deliver an integrated company, with one team for each function across the group, managed by one leadership team.
The firm also reported a major win in November when it secured a three-year contract to deliver a fully managed solution to a global workforce of 1,000 users.
In its outlook, company chief executive Nigel Redwood said it remained well positioned, with 88 per cent of its 2017 revenue generated from contracted recurring services and a proven cash generative business model.
He added that the group's Nasstar 10-19 programme had good momentum, with a visible path to increasing its adjusted EBITDA margin to 25 per cent by the end of 2019.
Mr Redwood said: "We are very pleased with the results. We hit the targets we set ourselves. We now start again with a new set of targets for this year.
"2017 was a pivotal year for Nasstar, a year in which we focused on maximising the opportunities which our previous acquisition activity had created.
"The launch of the Nasstar 10-19 strategy focused each and every employee on key priorities and laid solid foundations to help us deliver against our target to raise margins from 20 per cent to 25 per cent of revenue by the end of 2019.
"I was delighted to announce the November contract win that saw us secure a 1,000 user public/private hybrid cloud customer. This deal, amongst others in 2017, serves to endorse the technical strategy that we adopted when embracing the integration of the public cloud into our private cloud services. I am confident that this will continue to make Nasstar's offerings very relevant and attractive to the market in 2018."
Nasstar employs about 200 people across its operations, with more than half of those at its Queensway Business Park headquarters in Telford.
