DCC reports revenue growth

DCC’s results for its financial year indicate that the technology division has delivered decent revenue growth in the face of the pandemic.

The parent company of Exertis reported an 11% increase in revenue on the technology front, rising to £72.4m from £65.3m, for the 12 months ended 31 March.

Some parts of the Exertis business have performed particularly strongly, especially those that focused on helping customers with home working, but in contrast, some areas of the business have suffered, with audio visual orders for public displays drying up as events closed down.

Tim Griffin, managing director of DCC Technology, said the results had been pleasing given the market conditions, and the business had shown resilience and benefited from having a diverse portfolio.

Griffin pointed out that the firm had delivered those numbers against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, and the contribution of staff had been crucial.

“I’m thrilled by the leadership and I’m thrilled by the contribution of every single one of our team members,” he said. “I’ve taken particular satisfaction from our operational teams. We only ever deliver financial results when we ship, and every single one of our warehouse people has grappled with the challenges of Covid and worked through difficult circumstances. It’s been an extraordinary year, and we’ve been blessed with a host of heroes.”

Griffin said the expectation was that as society unlocked, some of the parts of the business that had been constrained during the pandemic would start to flourish again.

“There’s sort of pent-up demand in those businesses that will bounce, and that’s very satisfying to know that at some point in time, that will bounce,” he said.

He added that even those technology segments that had been strong over the past year because of the general shift to home working would continue to see momentum as customers maintained spending.

“As you start seeing refresh cycles come in, you start seeing people who’ve scrambled to address work-from-home necessities moving to a more formalised process of organising people in a structured way to address health and safety issues, so they’ve not got their tablet on top of three books and sitting on a sofa,” said Griffin. “So there’s a variety of solutions there that I think will have to be refreshed.”

Another change that should result from society unlocking more should be a return by DCC to making more acquisitions. The latest results included 75% contributed from organic growth, but it is usually pitched lower, with inorganic driving the bottom line.

Three deals were made in the period, but there are likely to be more to come as things get back on a more normal footing.

Griffin added: “We will continue to look to try and ensure that we have those specialisms [across the portfolio] represented in those key geographies that we’re in, which is predominantly UK, Northern Europe and North America.

“So we will continue to acquire to fill in the white space where we don’t have the specialism in a geography. Then we look to acquire bolt-ons that we can add to that in any key specialism, in any key geography and look for close adjacencies. So, we look to try and get significant growth through acquisition and we will continue to do so.”