Shares of Manchester-based cyber security company NCC Group rose 5% on Thursday after it published results for the year ended May 31, 2020, showing revenue increased 5.2% to £263.7 million

NCC said its profit before taxation fell 9.6% to £16.1 million but it is recommending an unchanged final dividend of 3.15p.

The company said it was on course to meet expectations for FY20 until the outbreak of Covid-19.

“We experienced an estimated £15m impact on FY20 sales order delivery; we expect further impact on demand through 2021,” said NCC.

“We have not made any Covid-19 redundancies or furloughed any colleagues.”

NCC said the impact of the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of cloud services by many firms and driven a significant increase in home working “all of which introduces further cyber risk into the operations of our customers and target market.”

It said global online security breaches “continue to rise at more than 20% per annum with reputational losses and financial losses becoming more significant.”

In its outlook, NCC said: “We have successfully weathered the initial impact of Covid-19 and our experience of doing so gives us confidence that we should be resilient, profitable and cash generative through any likely aftershocks this financial year …

“Parts of our customer base have been impacted by uncertainty, financial pressures or logistical issues …

“Consequently, we have observed procurement cycles lengthen and become less predictable …

“In some of the more affected sectors, including leisure and entertainment, we expect some customers to postpone work for 12 months or more …”

However, it added: “Our trading to date has been slightly ahead of the same period last year, albeit last year was a soft comparator period and the start of this year has been boosted by some exceptional M&A support engagements …”