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BUSINESS MAVERICK: Adapt IT bounces back — and now has to deal with an unsolicited offer from Huge Group Small-cap shares are a bit unloved on the JSE right now, but software company Adapt IT has survived the tough climate of 2020 and is aiming for growth. Shareholders and unwelcome suitors have noticed. It took small-cap software company Adapt IT a lot longer to recover from the beating that listed shares took in March 2020. That was when investors took fright at the looming coronavirus pandemic, causing global markets and the JSE to plunge by 25% or more over four days. While markets had almost fully rebounded by late July, Adapt IT was still hovering at R1.17 in late September, well off the R3.70 at which it started the year.But that changed in the same month when the company released its results for the year to 30 June 2020 which reassured investors that it was not going down the tubes, it was cash-flow positive and could manage its debt. Don't want to see ads?Since then the share...Read More

Sbu Shabalala...Read More

Adapt IT CEO Sbu Shabalala...Read More

Adapt IT on Tuesday (9 March) reported a 2% drop in revenue for the six months ended December 2020, to R707 million, due to ongoing challenging and weaker trading conditions particularly in South Africa – which remains the group’s primary market, constituting 73% of total revenue. Profit from operations, however, improved by a percent, to R79.83 million. “The Covid-19 global pandemic caused repeated shutdowns or slowdowns in certain of our client segments resulting in project volume decline and delays, with project based revenue suffering longer lead times,” it said. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) was R128 million, marginally down from R129 million in 2019. The impacts on earnings in the current period included an increase in bonus provision of R16 million, a negative foreign exchange movement of R10 million, and an increase in the allowance for expected credit losses of R7 million resulting from client segments most impacted by Covid-19, it...Read More

The US, UK and EU will open probes into Nvidia’s $40 billion acquisition of Arm. Accenture’s continued acquisition/investment spree dominated the international ICT market last month. At home, it was Huge’s bid for Adapt IT. Key local news Skynamo acquired mSeller, a UK-based mobile field sales technology provider. Altron is looking to divest some of its non-core businesses such as Altron Document Solutions, Altron Arrow and Altron People Solutions. Ellies Electronics is liquidating its manufacturing segment within the group on viability grounds. The Huge Group has made an R800 million offer for the shares of Adapt IT, a specialised software and digitally led business solutions provider. The MTN Group will sell its 20% shareholding in Belgacom International Carrier Services SA (BICS) to Belgian state-controlled telecoms firm Proximus for R1.8 billion, and the Administrative Court of Damascus (Syria) has placed MTN Syria under a judicial guardianship. Net1 has sold its remaining...Read More

JSE-listed technology company Adapt IT Holdings (Adapt IT) will be releasing its financial results for the six months ended 31 December 2020 on the JSE’s Stock Exchange News Service (SENS) on 9 March 2021 and via Web cast, at 10am (SAST) on Wednesday, 10 March 2021. In terms of the Listings Requirements of the JSE, companies are required to publish a trading statement as soon as they become reasonably certain that the financial results for the period to be reported on will differ by more than 20% from those of the previous corresponding period. Accordingly, a review by management of the financial results for the six months ended 31 December 2020, as disclosed on SENS today, has indicated that earnings per share (EPS), headline earnings per share (HEPS) and normalised HEPS (NHEPS) are all expected to increase. Sbu Shabalala, CEO of Adapt IT Holdings, commented: “I am pleased with our performance for the six months ended 31 December 2020. Our cash generation from operations was strong,...Read More