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Logica reports solid first-half results     Logica has reported a rise in both revenue and operating profits due to solid performances across all its markets, but restructuring and amortization costs lowered its profit.    In the UK the company returned to growth with revenue for the six months ending 30 June up by 6% to £1.8bn. Growth     in the UK public sector (which continued to account for over half of UK revenue), was 7%. Logica’s major continental European geographies also performed well, with growth above the market in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the Nordics.    Net income fell to     just £5m from £150m in the same period a year earlier, due to a £110m restructuring plan the company announced in April – £46m of which it paid in the first half of the year. The other cost was a £43m amortization of goodwill charges from the company’s recent acquisitions.        Adjusted operating profit was up 16% to £118m, slightly beating expectations. An £18m increase in adjusted operating profit in the UK more than offset a net decrease of £2m in other geographies. Adjusted operating margin was 6.7%, with UK improvements the largest contributor to a year on     year increase.    Logica currently expects 2008 revenue growth to be closer to 4% than its previous guidance of around 3%. Margin guidance remains unchanged at around the level of the 2007 underlying margin of 7.6%.

French services group Steria sees sales soar     French IT services group Steria has reported sales for the first half of the year up by 35.6% to €878.7m, driven by higher turnover in Germany.    Steria said it was likely to “significantly beat” its target for a first-half operating margin similar to that of last year.    According to the company, order entry accelerated during the second quarter and resulted in a robust ratio of order entry to revenue of 1.08 for the     first half of the year.    The United Kingdom continues to be in line with the integration plan, the company said. As expected, revenue for the second quarter reflects the termination of the Learning and Skills Council and My Travel contracts as well as the fact that two contracts initially planned for the first quarter of 2008 were postponed, and were finally signed in June.    At the end of June, all of the Xansa contracts due for     renewal since the acquisition date have been renewed. Trading was brisk: new orders were strong in June and the pipeline, which represented more than 2.6 times annualised revenue as of 30 June, is robust. This suggests a buoyant trend in order entry over the second half of the financial year, says the company.    In France, where Steria is still engaged in the programme launched in 2007 to move into higher value-added businesses and towards a     more industrial production model, revenue in the second quarter (-0.5%) showed an improvement on the two previous quarters (-3.3% in Q4 2007 and -3.8% in Q1 2008). During the second quarter, France entered a dynamic that should mean a return to strong revenue growth in the second half of 2008.    In Germany growth continued at a particularly strong pace and revenue increased by 12.4% in the second quarter of 2008. There     was also a good ratio of order entry to revenue (1.14) as of 30 June 2008.    In the other Europe zone, organic growth in revenue was 6.4% in the second quarter 2008 with an especially robust performance in Scandinavia, +16.5%, after restating for the sale of the payment terminal business in 2007.

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