Spirit managed services revenue down during first half of FY23

Profitability increased by 36 per cent to a loss of $1.9 million.

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Julian Challingsworth (Spirit managing director)

Spirit’s managed services revenue dropped by 15 per cent, year-on-year, to $30.1 million during the first half of its financial year ending 2023.

In its unaudited financial results for the six months ending 31 December, the publicly listed company said the result for Spirit IT&T, its managed services division that covers IT and telco, was a “restructured improvement”.

The restructure was announced in June 2022, with the company stating at the time that key units, which include Spirit IT&T as well as Intalock and Nexgen, would be aligned with each other.

Six months on, its unaudited results claim that the results represent “the divestment and customer profitability focus programs delivering a performance uplift”.

Spirit claimed that the offboarding of unprofitable customers pulled down its revenue, but has brought up its underlying net profit before tax (NPBT) by 36 per cent to a loss of $1.9 million.

Additionally, the trend of revenue being down but profitability increasing is expected to continue through FY23.

“The segment has progressed its strategic focus on the Spirit Microsoft Core, which will accelerate its progress in deploying Microsoft Modern Workplace, Microsoft cloud and security solutions at scale with improving margins and expects ongoing earnings uplifts from aligning to such a high growth, a market-leading suite of products and technologies,” the company added.

Spirit IT&T’s claimed improvement comes as the overall business returned to profitability, with the whole group reaching an unaudited $1.9 million in the black in underlying NPBT – surging 840 per cent from the first half of FY23’s NPBT of -$256,000.

Also up was its collaboration and communication division, which saw NPBT at $5.7 million, an increase of 61 per cent. Its cyber security division’s NPBT meanwhile was down 96 per cent to $41,000.