Logica Plc, the London-based IT consultancy, is on the look out for more acquisitions and is prepared to spend several hundreds of millions of pounds to boost its operations in countries such as the US, Germany and the Czech Republic. Over the last 18 months we’ve made five acquisitions and I would be surprised if you didn’t see us doing a few more in the course of the next six months, said chief executive Dr Martin Read. Logica is sitting on cash reserves of 54m pounds and a surging share price puts it in a strong position to raise more capital if required. The company, a star performer on the London stock market, reported net profits for the year to June 30 up 55% at 29.1m pounds on revenues 27.5% higher at 431.8m pounds. Though it has already spent the best part of 100m pounds on acquisitions, Logica’s expansion is based on organic growth, which has been strong in its target markets of telecommunications, energy and utilities, and finance. Growth in the US has been encouraging with revenues up 39% to 49.2m pounds and Logica is benefiting from power companies gearing up for market liberalization. Logica’s workforce grew by 25% during the year to reach 6,400 and its Logica/Aldiscon Irish off-shoot, which specializes in mobile telecommunications software, now plans to more than double its workforce, bringing the number of people employed at its Dublin software center to 530. The board promises superior growth for the current year and the shares rose 8.8% to 1822.5 pence. This has prompted the company to go for a four for one bonus issue to bring the price down.
