18th Mar 2014 09:54
LONDON (Alliance News) - SDL PLC opted to not pay a dividend, as it swung into a pretax loss in 2013, hit by restructuring and investment costs in what it called "the toughest year SDL has ever had."
The software company on Tuesday reported a pretax loss of GBP24.4 million for 2013, swinging from a pretax profit of GBP27.4 million in the previous year, as revenue declined to GBP266.1 million from GBP269.3 million, hit by a restructuring and impairment charges during the year.
The company posted an impairment charge of GBP20.4 million relating to its Content and Analytic Technologies segment, which delivered losses of GBP5.5 million during the year.
SDL also spent GBP2.5 million on redundancies and GBP1.4 million in historic litigation costs.
SDL chose not to propose a dividend for 2013, compared to a 6.1 pence dividend in the previous year, as a result of the restructuring and investment costs made during the year.
SDL reorganised the structure of its business from a product line-focused model to a customer centric business model, SDL said, and hired several technology executives to the company during the second half of the year.
It also launched a number of systems to help manage the business more effectively, which it expects to be in full operation by the end of 2014, and it rolled out training and realignment programmes in the last quarter of 2013, which will continue into the first half of 2014.
Revenue in the company's Language Services division declined to GBP150.5 million from GBP151.1 million in the previous year, as it saw a weaker performance in its first half, although this was partly offset by a stronger second half.
Language Technologies saw revenue drop to GBP36.2 million from GBP39.1 million in the previous year, hampered by weak licence bookings in its enterprise translation management tools.
The company said it had made hard decisions and investments during the year, but there would be a lag before the restructuring and investments take effect. SDL expressed confidence that it would return to the levels of profitability, and exceed the levels of technology growth, it had experienced in the past.
It expects the business to gain bookings, revenue and profit momentum as the new structure and initiatives come in.
"In 2013 we undertook some hard but essential changes that will provide the impetus for our future success. SDL's structure is now more aligned to the market opportunity, and I believe that we now have the foundations in place to capture the opportunities in customer experience management," said Chief Executive Mark Lancaster in a statement.
Shares in SDL were trading down 5.9% at 349.00 pence Tuesday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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