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South Africa: Ansys to Buy More Companies
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
15 May 2008
Posted to the web 15 May 2008
Bheki Mpofu
Johannesburg
ELECTRONICS engineering company Ansys, which has made four acquisitions since listing a year ago, said yesterday it intended growing its business through more acquisitions as it positions itself to benefit from a multibillion-rand rail infrastructure investment programme.
The AltX-listed company, which bought Emerging Signals, Optocon Systems, Quadsoft and Airport Interface Technologies for about R50m in cash and shares, said it would use its cash pile to acquire more businesses.
"We have a cash pile of R20,6m and a demand for our shares which we are ready to deploy on the right acquisitions which fit our business and, we hope, will help lift it to a whole new level. What is also significant is that our share is in demand, so we will be able to issue more shares to raise more money if needed," said CEO Alan Holloway.
Ansys (ANS) said yesterday profit for the year to February rose 50% on the previous year.
The company, which was last year judged by Bloomberg to be one of the best performing shares on AltX in terms of the gains made in its share price , posted an after tax profit of R18m compared with R12m in the previous year.
Revenue grew 54,5% to R122m from R79m, while headline earnings per share were up 25,6% to 13,71c.
"The strategic acquisitions we made have shown tremendous growth. We are currently looking at a number of businesses in the transport, defence and ICT (information and communications technology) sectors for possible acquisitions, and everything is still at an early stage," Holloway said.
He said the increase in turnover had largely been driven by the company's strategic focus on high value rail infrastructure projects.
Ansys said it had large contracts to supply sophisticated electronic equipment to Transnet and MetroRail and had also secured contracts from local and foreign defence manufacturers and in the air transportation industry.
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"Transnet's announcement regarding the upgrading of the country's rail network has already resulted in the procurement of hardware and the implementation of t rain c onditioning m onitoring systems," Holloway said. He said turnover was expected to increase significantly this year.
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