STC Plc seemed to have extraordinary difficulty getting its figures out in a timely fashion yesterday, but according to Reuters, the company reported pre-tax profits for 1988 up 22% at UKP230m, just above analysts’ expectations, and strong cash generation enabled it to add UKP100m to its cash balances, leaving it with UKP283m in the bank and in a firm position in the merger and acquisition activity that is certain to continue in the electronics sector this year. The bad news is that while ICL managed to keep its costs in check and record operating profits up 16% to UKP129m despite higher research and development expenditure, that was not on the back of a rapid increase in business: ICL grew a mere 4.6% to UKP1,360m – although adding in Datachecker and parts of Computer Consoles Inc should improve the picture next year. ICL says that its strongest UK markets were financial services and local government, and that overseas, its best areas – surprisingly – were North America, where before the two acquisitions, its business was tiny, and the Middle East and Africa. Sales and profits in software and services were also ahead, which implies that there was some pretty dull business elsewhere. Breaking down the rest of STC’s turnover of UKP2,357m, communications systems made operating profit up 21.6% at UKP90.2m on turnover up 46.5% at $642.5m, and components and distribution saw profits up 16.8% at UKP20.8m, sales up 10.3% at UKP342.5m. STC managing director Arthur Walsh exercised options to acquire 1m STC shares at just 84 pence against 322.5 pence in the market, and finance director Roy Gardiner 250,000 at 97 pence on Friday, giving rise to speculation that the figures would produce some hot news – but nothing transpired.
