Bull reports 2008 results, posts profit

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European HPC maker Bull reported its fiscal 2008 results on Friday, and probably popped a cork or two in the process. Revenues up, EBIT up, cash on hand up, and they made a profit

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  • Increase in consolidated revenues of 1.4%, which reached €1 132.8 million; the Services & Solutions business growing by 14.7%; Hardware & Systems Solutions increasing by 5.6%; and the Maintenance business seeing a 6.8% fall
  • 8.3% increase in EBIT (see glossary) to €30.1 million compared with EBIT (recast1) of €27.8 million in 2007; exceeding the objective set for 2008
  • Operating profit of €20.9 million includes the overall impact, which is globally positive, of modifications in scope, as well as provisions for restructuring costs designed to support the Group’s continued business transformation
  • Net cash (see glossary) stood at €302 million, a historically high level, and reflects a significant fall in debt following the implementation of a new program of sales of receivables. At the end of 2007, net cash stood at €192.5 million

The press releases discussed the principles of that business transformation, which included divestiture of “non-core” businesses (like the US Medicaid business), and a focus on HPC

The acquisition of science+computing (s+c) – one of Germany’s leading specialists in scientific computing, who will add further weight to our major successes in the German High-Performance Computing (HPC) market, the largest in Europe.

“As a result of this strong repositioning, our portfolio of activities is consolidating around our key engines for growth: HPC, secure storage and Services. This concentration is improving the quality and resilience of our revenues and represents one of our main strengths when it comes to facing the current uncertain economic environment.