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Pentalog will report a 50% production
increase for the second quarter 2008 compared to the same
period in 2007.This booming activity was mainly drawn by
the expansion of Eastern-European business (bank, telecom,
industry). On the German side, the Frankfurt subsidiary,
focused on java and dotnet development activities achieves 7%
of the sales figure and 20% of the group's total growth. The
Ukrainian subsidiary is still at an embryonic stage and thus
will probably not contribute significantly to the group's
growth before the 4th quarter. The Kiev team is currently
working for a local subsidiary of the European leader in
the banking sector.
If we look at the offshore production, a certain
number of clients (particularly innovative companies)
have clearly increased their development operations.
During the second quarter the group experienced its
first failure with an offshore client and will make
sure that this does not happen again in the future.
Regarding engineering activities, the trend is a
rising demand in R&D
(especially in embedded
software) which jumped by 100% in Pentalog’s
business. These activities represent 45 employees
and several bids are still being analysed.
The BPO
contracts have significantly contributed to the
company's growth, with 22 persons involved in the contact
centre (call and data management), 10 in finance and accountancy,
5 in DTP and content management. This business does not yet account
for a big part of the sales figure since the prices are very low.
However the net profit ratio meets our objectives.
By the way the group is searching for a partner to manage
and market the "contact centre" offer.
After reassessing the growth rate to 5% for the first quarter,
the company should confirm a 50% progression in turnover for
the first semester, with 80% of organic growth, far ahead from
the usual 6% expected in most of the Western European countries
Pentalog will have at least 240 employees by the end of June
and sales will exceed the 2006 level by the 15th of June. For
this year, the sales objective is EUR 7 - 7,5M. The operating
margin meets the group's strategic expectations.
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