7th Mar 2019 10:04
LONDON (Alliance News) - Shares in Alfa Financial Software Holdings PLC spiked Thursday after the asset finance software firm provided a positive outlook for 2019 after a "challenging" 2018.
Shares in Alfa Financial were up 21% in morning trading at 148.70 pence each.
In 2018, Alfa Financial reported a 34% decrease in pretax profit to GBP22.5 million from GBP33.9 million.
The company's revenue decreased 19% to GBP71.0 million from GBP87.8 million in 2017.
The company attributed the drop in revenue to a "major customer" delaying the implementation of an Alfa Financial product and the company's conversion of its sales pipeline being "slower than expected".
The company's Software Implementation unit saw its revenue fall 30% in 2018 to GBP30.4 million. Alfa Financial's Ongoing Development & Services unit saw a 15% rise in revenue to GBP23.9 million.
The company's third core unit - Maintenance - saw a revenue decrease of 22% to GBP16.8 million.
Alfa Financial said 2018 was a "challenging year" but saw its revenue increase 16% in the second half year-on-year.
"While 2018 was a challenging year for Alfa, with the delay of one of our significant software implementations and a slower than expected conversion of our sales pipeline, we continue to focus on converting sales opportunities into successful customer implementation projects," said Chief Executive Andrew Denton.
Denton continued: "We are currently progressing contractual discussions with a new European customer and planning a second phase implementation for an existing multi-national customer. We have also seen an increase in the overall size of the late-stage pipeline across geographies and verticals since we last reported at our half year results. Following an assessment of a number of different areas across the business - including our sales and commercial processes - we have made a number of organisational changes which we believe will strengthen the business going forward."
Alfa Financial said it expects to perform in line with its own expectations in 2019.
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