26th Feb 2014 13:35
LONDON (Alliance News) - Microgen PLC said Wednesday its pretax profit declined as revenue dropped in 2013, hit by declines in its Aptitude Software and Financial Systems businesses.
The IT technology and services company maintained its total dividend at 3.3 pence, in addition to the special dividend of 5.2 pence paid in May.
Pretax profit was GBP9.1 million, down from GBP9.3 million, hampered by exceptional costs of GBP381,000 during the year. Microgen posted revenue of GBP29.8 million, down from GBP32.3 million in the previous year.
Despite this decline Microgen also cut its operating costs to GBP10.9 million from GBP11.3 million in the previous year.
Its Aptitude Software Business saw revenue of GBP14.7 million, down from GBP16.3 million in the previous year. Despite seeing strong revenue growth from its annual software licenses and other recurring revenue, Microgen said that the number of consultants it had deployed during the year had been broadly flat, due to customer budgetary constraints.
In Financial Systems, revenue was GBP15.1 million, below the GBP16.0 million in the previous year, as more mature products and non-financial services offerings continued to decline. The Financial Systems business signed a contract with a US bank, which Microgen didn't name, and is currently deploying its wealth management product 5Series with the bank.
Microgen completed a strategic review in October. In August, Chief Executive Officer David Sherriff announced he would leave as soon as the review had been completed.
Following the company's strategic review, the company has decided to increase investment in its Aptitude Software business to pursue the potential market for Big Data. The Aptitude software business began a sales partnership with IBM in 2013.
In its Financial Systems business Microgen's strategy following the review is to increase the proportion of revenues generated from the wealth management sector. Microgen said it had identified and appraised a number of add-on acquisitions, although it said there was no certainty any acquisitions will be completed in the near future.
Shares in Microgen were trading up 0.7% at 137.00 pence Wednesday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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