Trading Update

Computacenter PLC 13 June 2000 COMPUTACENTER PLC TRADING UPDATE There has been much discussion of the slower than expected recovery of the IT market across Europe, post Y2K. Computacenter, as a market leader in the supply of distributed IT systems and services, has, not surprisingly, been affected by this general market condition. Consequently, whilst profits were in line with our expectations in the first quarter, we are seeing a shortfall relative to budget in Q2. We also anticipate the delayed recovery will affect Q3, albeit to a lesser extent. With the growth of e-commerce, the IT challenges facing our corporate customers have changed substantially since 1999. One consequence is that it is taking them longer than we anticipated to bring new projects on stream post-millenium. Also, widespread deployment of Windows 2000 is not expected to gain momentum until the latter part of 2000 and this is having the effect of slowing down new IT infrastructure roll-outs at the present time. We are however, beginning to see the first very large Windows 2000 implementations. For example, Computacenter has recently won a 35,000 user European roll-out project for Windows 2000 for one of our largest corporate customers. We have also seen our open systems business, especially the deployment of Sun Microsystems solutions, go from strength to strength this year on the back of accelerated demand for e-commerce applications. The consequence is that our order book for H2 is continuing to build and we expect the recovery in demand for products and services to accelerate through Q3 and Q4 of this year. Our outlook on profitability for the Group is that, whilst Computacenter remains strongly in profit, our results for this financial year are likely to fall short of current analysts' expectations. The relative resilience of Computacenter's profitability through the Y2K period (profit before tax for the period spanning the millennium, July 1999 to June 2000, is expected to be in excess of £55 million) is a direct result of our market leading position. In the medium and longer term we remain extremely confident about the outlook for the Group. Our strategy of continued investment in developing the range and scale of our service businesses remains unchanged and on track. Enquiries: Computacenter PLC Mike Norris, Chief Executive 01707 631 519 Phil Williams, Corporate Development Manager Brunswick Group Limited Jon Coles 020 7404 5959 Catriona Booth
UK 100

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