Ibex Global Solutions' revenue rises due to new contract wins

Contact centre provider Ibex Global Solutions’ full year revenue grew due to new contract wins as it improved operations in Pakistan and Senegal.

For the year ended 30 June, revenue grew 7% to $255.5m, compared to the same period last year, which resulted in a 12.4% rise in profit of $51.4m.

Pre-tax profit fell slightly by 1.4% to $7.1m and the adjusted profit margin grew to 20.1% from 19.1%.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose 7.8% to $17.9m and the EBITDA margin grew to 7% from 6.9%.

Net income increased by 1.5% to $6.5m, which resulted in diluted earnings per share of 16.37 cents each, up from 16.19 cents last year.

At the end of June the company had net assets of $27.6m, an 8% increase on the prior year, and its net debt widened by about 75% to $32.5m.

During the year the company improved and expanded its offshore and nearshore operations, which contributed to its higher profit margin.

It made investments to expand facilities in Pakistan, which resulted in a contract win in June with a mobile operator. The company transformed its Senegal operation to be a low cost alternative to Tunisia and Morocco to support the French market with competitive labour rates, French language skills and limited competition.

Ibex won new work from existing clients and gained a number of blue-chip clients during the year, which will contribute to growth and profit performance while the number of staff employed grew by about 24% to over 15,5000.

In August, the company won a deal with a client from the television and media services in the Philippines.

The company is also gearing up to launch a contact centre in Jamaica with a Fortune 25 client in late September.

Selling, general and administrative expenses was 13.1% of revenue and compared favourably to industry standards of between 15% and 28%.

Chief executive Robert Dechant said the company anticipates the majority of its growth to be driven by the offshore and nearshore regions, and the investments made to sales, which are seeing early positive returns.

“Ibex recognises that changes to the macro-backdrop can quickly affect the business. Whilst regulatory and legislative issues, the 2016 US presidential election, and various new minimum wage statutes at state and federal levels may impact on the US economy, we are confident in our business and our team's ability to successfully deal with any challenges we encounter and continue to build upon our business.

“Our goal is to continue to grow faster than the market whilst improving our bottom line performance. We firmly believe we can deliver on this.”

Chairman Muhammad Chishti added that the company was “well placed to deliver better than market revenue growth and achieve double-digit EBITDA margins".

The company declared a final dividend of 6.6 cents per share, which representing a total dividend of 11.7 cents each.

Shares in Ibex Global Solutions were down 0.62% to 80p at 0806 BST.