Panoply swings to profit as turnover climbs by a third

Panoply on Monday swung to an interim profit and reported a jump in revenue in its first full period of results since its initial public offering on 4 December 2018.

The IT services provider returned a profit before tax of £81,000 for the six months ended 30 September, compared with a loss of £0.7m from the same period last year, with revenue climbing by 33% to £13.4m on a pro forma basis.

The increase in turnover came as the AIM traded company won several contracts from major public services sector clients, while commercial sector progress included key wins with Cargill, Nestlé business Tails and News UK.

The period saw Panoply complete its acquisition of FutureGov, its largest acquisition to date, which strengthened its position in the public sector and expanded the company's digital transformation capabilities.

The company also sank significant investment into robotic process automation, conversational interfaces and Microsoft .NET development capabilities, with each of these areas now generating revenue.

Highlighting its sales backlog and strong pipeline of business, Panoply said it expected that full year forecasts will be achieved.

Chief executive Neal Gandhi said: "Our investments into businesses that focus on conversational interfaces and robotic process automation have hit the ground running and are already generating revenues for the group. Both are set to benefit from significant structural growth trends, and the calibre of clients won so far demonstrate that the offerings we've built are best of breed."

Panoply shares were up by 6.00% at 79.50p at 1523 GMT.