Arkphire eyes further growth as profits and turnover jump

Irish IT company has enjoyed an increase revenues by over €100m in just five years

Fast-growing Irish IT consulting and managed-services company Arkphire recorded a sharp rise in turnover and profits in 2019 after a multimillion euro investment a year earlier to help it scale the business

The firm has reported pretax profits of €6.6 million for the year ending June 30th, up from €4.6 million in 2018.

Arkphire, which recently acquired Irish rival Trilogy Technologies for an undisclosed sum, reported record revenues of €126 million, a 40 per cent rise on the prior year and up from just €20 million five years ago.

The company, whose technology partners include EMC, Dell and Cisco, provides services that cover IT procurement, cloud computing, network services, data centre and managed services. It secured a multimillion investment from London-based private capital firm Bregal Milestone in late 2018 to aid growth.

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Now employing 200 people following the Trilogy acquisition, Arkphire recently opened a new office in Singapore and appointed its first head of Asia Pacific as it targets growth in the region.

"We are thrilled with the continued growth trajectory that Arkphire is experiencing," said chief executive Paschal Naylor. "Of particular note is the growth in turnover that we set for the business five years ago which now sees Arkphire move past the €100 million turnover milestone for the first time in the company's 40-year history."

When Arkphire acquired Trilogy in late December, it said the newly enlarged group would have combined revenues of close to €150 million and employ 220 people.

Newly filed accounts for Arkphire show it employed 96 people at the end of June 2019, up from 82 a year earlier. Staff costs totalled €5.94 million while directors’ remuneration came in at €804,854.

The company dates back to 1981, when it was known as Memorex Telex. It has had several incarnations since then. After a takeover in 1998 it rebranded as EDS Global Services, before becoming AO Systems + Services Ireland when it was acquired by the German-owned IT provider AO Group, in 2006. It returned to Irish ownership in 2009 following a management buyout and relaunched as Arkphire in 2011.

Charlie Taylor

Charlie Taylor

Charlie Taylor is a former Irish Times business journalist