Datatec Full-Year Sales May Reach $5.8 Billion on Global Growth

Datatec Ltd. (DTC), a networking equipment and services company that operates in more than 50 countries, predicted fiscal full-year revenue will climb to $5.5 billion to $5.8 billion after acquisitions enhanced its global reach.

Sales had been predicted at $5.7 billion, according to the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. First-half sales through August rose 7.5 percent from a year earlier to $2.62 billion, with 35 percent of revenue coming from outside North America and Europe, the Johannesburg-based company said in a statement today. Full-year underlying earnings per share will rise to about 55 cents from 47.9 cents, Datatec said.

“Overall revenues and underlying earnings are continuing to improve but the rate of growth has slowed as the macro- economic climate has become more uncertain,” Chief Executive Officer Jens Montanana, said in the statement. “The diversity of our business streams and our global footprint continue to be strong assets.”

Datatec has expanded global operations through acquisitions. In July, it announced the purchase of Afina Group, a security and datacenter company with operations in 12 Latin American, Caribbean and North African countries. In the first half, Datatec also bought security company Triple AcceSSS IT GmbH, based in Neudorf, Austria, Indonesian security company PT Netpoleon and Brisbane-based IT services company Corpnet.

Datatec shares fell 1.4 percent to 54.25 rand at 9:45 a.m. in Johannesburg trading.

The company had sales of $5.03 billion in the last fiscal year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jaco Visser in Johannesburg at avisser3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Viljoen at jviljoen@bloomberg.net