4th Sep 2015 08:24
LONDON (Alliance News) - Coms PLC on Friday said it expects profit generated by its Redstone Converged Solutions Ltd business in the first half to exceed the company's central costs and losses at Darkside Studios.
The AIM-listed company confirmed that Spencer Dredge has now begun work as its new chief financial officer, while Mark Braund - the current boss of InterQuest Group PLC - is to join as chief executive in January 2016.
"With the new management team in place, and some although not all, of the legacy issues having been resolved, the board expects the group to enter a more successful period of trading," Coms said.
Coms had already warned that losses booked over the telecommunications businesses it has sold are expected to result in a "substantial loss" for the first half of its financial year. New losses would add to the GBP14.9 million pretax loss recorded in Coms' last financial year to January 31, stung by big impairment charges in the division it sold.
It said that losses at Darkside were connected to the "disruption" caused by the problems in the telecommunications division.
Redstone, which together with Darkside now forms the core of the company, secured GBP13 million of new contracts in the first half, most of which will be executed in the second part of the year.
"Contracts were signed with international financial services companies, international accountancy firms, a search engine company, a commercial property company and a national gallery. Two new smart buildings contracts were signed and other contracts spanned ICT services, designing and delivering a data centre, supplying data centre services and delivering infrastructure," Coms said.
The disposal of the telecommunications businesses has now allowed Coms to make "some progress in extricating itself" from liabilities associated with those businesses, the company said.
"Heads of terms have been agreed for the lease over the office in Brentwood to be assigned to a new tenant with effect from mid October 2015. This office has a monthly running cost of approximately GBP30,000 and the lease expiry is 2024. A further announcement will be made once contracts have been exchanged," Coms said.
"The group is also left with the lease over the Stokenchurch property and the board is continuing to explore its options for exiting that property," the company added.
Shares in Coms were down 9.6% at 0.520 pence on Friday morning in London.
By Samuel Agini; [email protected]; @samuelagini
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