Computacenter Shares ISA Case Strengthens After July Guidance Upgrade

Computacenter shares have become one of the more compelling ISA candidates in the FTSE 100 this year, up 108.6% over the past twelve months, comfortably outpacing Rolls-Royce’s 43.7% over the same period. A July 2026 trading update then raised the stakes further, with the company upgrading its full-year guidance to ‘comfortably ahead of market expectations’, a step beyond the prior ‘ahead of expectations’ language.

What Is Driving Computacenter’s Growth

Computacenter (LSE: CCC) is the largest value-added reseller of IT equipment headquartered outside the United States, supplying PCs, servers, and data-centre infrastructure to enterprise and hyperscale customers across Europe and North America. It employs over 21,000 people worldwide.

The AI infrastructure buildout is the engine here. Full-year 2025 revenue reached £9.2bn, a 33% increase, driven heavily by hyperscale customers in North America. In the first half of 2025, Technology Sourcing revenue grew 40.6% in constant currency, largely from high-volume North American orders. North America’s share of group adjusted operating profit (before central costs) rose to 44% in H1 2025, up from 24% in H1 2024, with profits in the region nearly doubling year on year.

The July 2026 trading statement confirmed momentum had continued: first-half adjusted pre-tax profit is expected to be roughly double the H1 2025 figure of £81.5m. The company’s committed product order backlog at the end of June 2026 was well ahead of December’s £7.1bn, which had itself risen 200% over the prior year. The full half-year results are due on 8 September 2026.

The trading update also published the company-compiled analyst consensus for FY 2026: adjusted profit before tax of £313.7m, with a range of £305.0m to £324.3m. The ‘comfortably ahead’ guidance upgrade implies management believes the top end of that range is likely conservative.

Is the Computacenter Shares ISA Case Still Intact at This Valuation

The bull case is not difficult to articulate. Hyperscaler capital expenditure from the likes of Alphabet’s Google, Amazon, and Microsoft is expected to top $1trn by 2028. Computacenter sits directly in the supply chain for that infrastructure spend. Since 2013, the company has returned over £1bn to shareholders through dividends and special distributions, demonstrating that management has historically converted growth into cash returns rather than simply reinvesting it all.

For FY 2025, Computacenter’s investor relations page shows adjusted diluted earnings per share of 175.1p and a full-year dividend of 74.6p, with adjusted net funds of £606m. The balance sheet is in good order.

The risks are real, though. At 21 times forward earnings, the shares are not priced for disappointment. Management itself flagged a ‘tougher comparative in the second half of the year’, meaning the year-on-year growth numbers will mechanically be harder to beat once the H2 2025 base (which was strong) comes into view. Computacenter’s profit margin sits at around 3%, a structural feature of the technology-distribution business rather than a temporary weakness. When volume growth is running hot, thin margins are tolerable; a slowdown hits earnings hard and fast.

The FY 2024 final results showed a business that had already begun re-rating upward, so much of the easy multiple expansion has likely happened. Anyone buying at current levels is paying for continued execution on very large orders from a small number of hyperscale customers. Concentration risk is not visible in the headline revenue figures but it is present in the structure of the business.

Income-focused ISA investors will also note the dividend yield has compressed to around 1.53% at the current share price. The £200m share buyback programme initiated in July 2024 is a better signal about capital allocation philosophy than the headline yield, but it does not change the income trade-off.

The 8 September half-year results will be the first proper test: whether the H1 2026 profit figure lands at roughly double £81.5m, how the backlog conversion has progressed, and whether management maintains the ‘comfortably ahead’ language or starts to trim expectations for H2. That result, not the July trading statement, is where the thesis gets confirmed or complicated.