After concluding a successful year of repositioning, restructuring and realignment, telecommunications and information and communication technology (ICT) giant Allied Electronics (Altron) is now heading into the 2019 financial year as a group ready to deliver on growth.

During the 2018 financial year ended February, Altron recovered from its losses in recent years, meeting its double-digit growth targets with revenue rising 14% to R14.7-billion, normalised earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) increasing 19% to R1.1-billion and headline earnings per share from continuing operations surging 19% to 135c.

A year after taking the lead, CEO Mteto Nyati, attributing the positive results to the execution of the new One Altron strategy, highlights a year of strengthening leadership, strategic acquisitions to drive growth, strategic partnerships, the rightsizing of the head office and key operations and the unlocking of cross-selling across the organisation.

The group has continued to pursue partnerships and acquisitions in line with its intention to increase its international footprint and increase offshore revenue streams.

In line with this, two notable acquisitions were made during the 2018 financial year, namely Bytes UK’s £35.9-million acquisition of value-added reseller Phoenix Software and Altech Netstar’s acquisition of Australia-based vehicle tracking and fleet management firm EZY2C for A$15.9-million.

Pheonix will position the group as Microsoft’s largest partner, unlock an opportunity to cross-sell Altron’s current offerings into a new base, while offering Pheonix’s end-to-end solutions to its own customers and enabling Bytes UK to serve the entire UK market.

EZY2C will geographically expand Altech Netstar’s revenue stream and drive consolidation in a fragmented market with 9% market share.

New partnerships and joint ventures targeting Altron’s growth areas of data analytics, security, the Internet of Things and cloud computing have been entered into with Tango Telecom, Performanta and IoT.Nxt.

Altron has also made progress in the disposal of its noncore assets and reducing its exposure to the manufacturing sector.

The disposal of Powertech Transformers is expected to be completed by the end of this month, while the disposal of the remaining discontinued operations, CBI Telecom Cables and Altech UEC/Multimedia, will be completed in the current financial year.

Powertech Batteries, Aberdare, PTSI, Swanib Cables, Crabtree and Switchgear/Quadpro are among the disposals concluded over the past year.

Altron now also has a leaner head office with a “considerably tighter” focus on the operations of businesses in the group, and has ppointed new MDs in a number of core businesses, including Bytes Systems Integration, Bytes Managed Solutions and Altech Netstar, to drive the restructuring of these operations.

“During the past financial year, our board went through a number of changes to ensure alignment with our new ICT-focused strategy,” Nyati says.

The company’s head office structure emerged much leaner, with 36% fewer employees and a reduced corporate cost base.

Altron further expects its One Altron strategy and the ‘2-5-1’ goal to deliver a second consecutive year of double-digit Ebitda and earnings growth.

The ‘2-5-1’ goal effectively means the doubling of Ebitda in five years and becoming number one in the market.