"We're back" - Energis reports 2004 profit

Claims to have ridden out telecoms storm

Energis claims to have turned a corner, posting its first annual profit since the severe restructuring at the telco in 2002.

For the 12 months to 31 March, it made a pre-exceptional item profit of £10m on revenues of £745m - actually down three per cent year-on-year - compared to a year-ago loss of £369m.

Eamonn O'Hare, CFO at Energis, told silicon.com: "New, post-restructuring Energis has a very different strategy. We are concentrating on a smaller number of larger customers, all in the UK."

He said the telco now hopes to grow revenues on a high-quality customer base, measuring around 2,000 organisations, down from an all-time high of more than 6,000. As well as holding on to 1990s accounts such as the BBC and Trinity Media, £300m of new, often long-term business won in the past year includes Boots, Centrica, FT Group and Wanadoo.

The company's executive team, besides O'Hare, includes former Asda boss Archie Norman as chairman and, as CEO, John Pluthero, who used to run Freeserve, until recently the name for Wanadoo's UK arm.

A key signing this year has been Martin Wyke, formerly IT director at Debenhams and other UK retailers. O'Hare added: "We've often hired from outside telecoms. With Martin we get an acute commercial sense and a pragmatic, down-to-earth approach."

Energis will now concentrate on convergence, in some cases providing voice as a free IP-based application on top of network services, and says local loop unbundling is now back on the agenda, which will have an impact on the way it carries traffic for ISPs.