Attachmate acquisition pays off for Micro Focus

Micro Focus International rocketed its way through the first half of the year, with its interim results showing impressive growth on Thursday morning.

The FTSE 250-listed international software product group reported a massive 190.2% jump in revenue, to $604.5m (£398.26m), in the six months to October 31.

It saw adjusted EBITDA increase 164% to $270.6m, with a pre-tax profit for the period of $98.8m, up 73%.

Micro Power described the numbers as being at the top end of management expectations in the report, primarily driven by the firm's SUSE software portfolio where revenues grew by 14.1% on a pro-forma cross currency basis.

The group also managed a $42m decrease in its adjusted operating costs after integrating various functions.

Executive chairman Kevin Loosemore described the results as demonstrating the newly increased scale of the company, given the acquisition of The Attachmate Group in recent months.

"We have made further progress on the integration of the business and our goal of building a solid base for further expansion."

Micro Focus also announced a number of board appointments, with Stephen Murdoch joining as CEO of Micro Focus and Nils Brauckmann as CEO of SUSE on February 1 2016.

"Our goal, which the board is confident of delivering, remains to achieve returns to shareholders of 15%-20% per annum in the long term based on effective exrcution in the mature infrastructure software market", Loosemore added.

Micro Focus announced a dividend of 16.94c per share, up from 15.4c last year.