Capita does a U turn

4e1c55e8ea626edb781355e5ac47ca51--small-cars-naples-italyCapita’s IT services division managed to turn itself round in the first half of this year and get back to black. However, the rest of the company is not looking so hot.

Overall Capita business saw an underlying revenue decline of three percent to £2.07 billion.

The drop in revenue saw Capita’s share price fall by over 11 percent on the London Stock Exchange.

Underlying operating profit however jumped 38 percent to £228.4 million, attributed to “a significant improvement” in the IT services division.

CEO Andy Parker stepped down last week to spend more time with his family just before the news was announced.

Nick Greatorex, interim CEO at Capita, said: “In the first half of 2017, we made good progress on executing the plans laid out at the end of last year to reposition the group.

“We announced the sale of our asset services businesses, completed the disposal of our specialist recruitment business and commenced a number of cost initiatives.

“We remain confident that these actions are making Capita a simpler business, well positioned for the future under new leadership.”

Despite the broader business struggling, Capita was optimistic about the turnaround of its IT services division.

The IT division was held responsible for Capita’s first ever profit warning last year, and was a key factor in Parker announcing his departure in March after the outsourcer’s full-year profits fell £100 million  in 2016.

However in H1 Capita saw revenue for the division up 13.6 percent to £273.9 million

Capita said: “The turn-around of our IT services division progressed better than expected, following restructuring of the management team and operating model, but we continued to be impacted by weakness in a number of discretionary services.

“We improved our major contract win rate in a relatively subdued business process management market in the public sector.”