Wunderbar! Bechtle chairman fizzles after sizzling financials

Sprawling German-owned tech reseller Bechtle AG today reported a double digit spike in revenues as it made ground both in the relatively sluggish home markets and abroad, helped by acquisitions.

Turnover in calendar Q2 was up 16.4 per cent to €603.7m (£482m) including a 14.6 jump in domestic revenues to €403.4m as those outside of its fatherland grew by a little over a fifth to €200.2m.

The IT systems house (local tech services) and managed services biz posted a sales leap of 13.3 per cent to €388.8m with the majority of this transacted in Germany, while e-commerce bounced more than 22 per cent to €214.8m.

The bottom line wasn’t too sloughy either; profit after tax flew upwards by nearly 58 per cent to €16.4m (£13.1m)

“The entire team deserves the praise for this remarkable achievement,” said Dr Thomas Olemotz, chairman of the board.

The trade update was particularly impressive given the stuttering German IT market which Forrester forecast to grow 1.2 per cent this year to €92bn, making it the second largest IT consumer in Europe behind Britain.

Forrester analyst Andrew Bartels, said the outside of Germany’s robust manufacturing sector it “lacks the dynamism of the UK economy, with a falling population, a sheltered and old-fashioned retail and service sector, and an austerity-minded public sector”.

At the end of the quarter, Bechtle, which has operations nine other countries across Europe including Blighty, 6,387 staff, up 5.7 per cent on a year ago due in the main to acquisitions made.

In February, prior to Q2, Bechtle acquired German-based managed services outfit AMARAS AG and in March it snapped up Planet! Software-Vertrieb & Consulting GmbH. The buy contributed around €3.7m sales in Q2. ®