Bytes Group CEO resigns

Neil Murphy has resigned from the CEO position of Bytes Group after failing to disclose a number of trades of the firm’s shares.

Murphy notified the board he made a number of trades in the company’s shares that had not been disclosed to the company or the market in compliance with the PDMR disclosure requirements.

The board issued a statement sharing the news of Murphy’s decision to resign with immediate effect, announcing that  am Mudd, executive director of the company and managing director of Phoenix Software, will be taking on the role of interim CEO.

“The board is working to clarify the details of these undisclosed trades. Based on the information provided to the board, Neil Murphy’s holding of BTG’s shares is 2,890,218 and remains unchanged from the position notified to the market on 28 November 2023,” the firm stated.

Murphy was synonymous with Bytes, having been with the business since 1997, rising up through various positions to become the CEO in 2020. He masterminded the channel player’s move back in 2020 to become a public company and has seen the business deliver consistent results since going through its IPO.

When the firm went public, it started conditional trading with a pricing of shares on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker “BYIT” at 270 pence each, valuing the business at approximately £646.6m.

Since then, shares have consistently been above the 500 mark, and this morning had climbed slightly to stand at 541.

At the same time as sharing the update on the CEO position, the firm indicated to shareholders that the business continued to perform well, saying that “trading for the financial year ending 29 February 2024 has been in line with the board’s expectations”, and adding that a full update would be coming next month.

In October, the firm shared interim numbers covering its six months ended 31 August, with revenues improving by 16.3% to come in at £108.7m with a climb of 13.8% in adjusted operating profit to £33.9m. During the period, the firm managed to secure some sizeable public sector deals as well as keep enterprise demand ticking over.

Other highlights included increasing the headcount by just shy of 10%, and keeping a customer base, with renewal rates of 113%.

Speaking back then, Murphy thanked staff for their contribution to its performance and spoke of the resilience in the business. “While the economic backdrop remains mixed, we have continued to see strong demand from our corporate and public sector customers for security, cloud adoption, digital transformation, hybrid datacentres and remote working solutions,” he said.