IT Europa:Asbis reports strong first half

Eastern European disti ASBIS reports higher pre-tax profits for the first half of 2007, boosted by a 27% surge in revenues. Pre-tax profit increased to $3.8m (€2.8m) from $2.9m (€2.1m) in the same period last year as revenues jumped to $540.1m (€396m) from $426.4m (€313m). Laurent Journoud, VP sales and marketing at ASBIS, comments on the interim results: “ASBIS has registered growth across all segments of the board, and we can't single out any particular vendor or product. In fact, we exploded all targets from all vendors. The growth was in part due to the hard times on the market and fierce competition, which made us brace up and mobilise our forces.”

The company says it still plans a listing on the Warsaw Stock Exchange this year. Constantinos Tziamalis, investor relations and credit director at Asbis, reckons the Warsaw Exchange would better complement the distributor's geographic focus. The move is currently pending approval from the Polish Securities and Exchange Commission, which would see it officially listed around the start of October.

"Asbis distributes into the entire EMEA, but focuses mostly on the central and eastern Europe, former Soviet Union and Middle East regions," he says. "We deem that the Warsaw Stock Exchange is situated in the middle of where we operate, as opposed to London, which is totally western Europe. Warsaw Stock Exchange has now become a regional exchange for the whole of eastern Europe. It is very well regulated and offers very good liquidity, which we consider to be a very strong point. It's very much investor-friendly as opposed to many other exchanges in the region."

Copyright: IT Europa (30 August 2007)
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