Although fiscal 1996 had what financial director Carl Gouveia admitted was flat growth, London-based Spargo Consulting Plc saw its annual figures start to move in the right direction again, after a run-in with the tax man that put a crimp on profits in fiscal 1995 (CI No 2,712). Pre-tax profits this period grew 34% to 1.2m pounds, on revenue up 6% to 8m pounds. Over the last year, according to Gouveia, the company has been re-jigging the infrastructure from within, as well as concentrating on spreading its dependence on particular clients more evenly across the client base, where the likes of Computer Sciences Ltd were responsible for around 30% of Spargo’s business at the beginning of the year, to each client bringing in an average of 10% of total revenue by the year-end. It puts this largely down to being able to expand its Year 2000 repertoire (CI No 2,963): in the last six months Spargo has forged partnership agreements with Year 2000 compliance software vendors Viasoft Inc, Sterling Software Inc and Select Software Tools Inc. It has also added Ladbroke Plc and Cellnet Mobile Communications Ltd to its client list, as well as a number of firms in the banking, insurance and oil industries, it says. With 1.3m pounds cash in the bank, up 55.4% from last year, the company has no plans for acquisitions, concentrating more on organic growth. Spargo will pay a final dividend of 2.5 pence, up 11%, bringing the total for the year to 4.5 pence, for a 12.5% rise.
