Alliance Pharma Share News (APH)

New chief executive Duncan Lewis has restructured Vislink's operations so they are based on customer sectors rather than technologies. The core news and entertainment division reported much lower revenues as its major US contract came to an end. The law enforcement division is benefiting from increased spending on surveillance equipment and the marine division is gaining work onshore. Revenues fell from £101m to £94.7m in 2009. The underlying operating profit declined by two-fifths to £5.22m and pre-tax profit slumped from £8.77m to £4.75m. The dividend is unchanged at 1.25p a share. Net cash was £611,000 at the end of 2009. Capitalised development spending increased from £2.95m to £3.2m. The order book was worth £20.3m at the end of 2009. Cost savings will help profits to recover this year. Evolution forecasts that profits will improve to £8.6m in 2010. Asia and the Middle East provide the most opportunities. Vislink is ready to make acquisitions and they are likely to be in Asia so that the company has a base in the region. Healthcare and life sciences services provider Source BioScience moved into profit in 2009. There was a swing from a loss of £300,000 to a profit of £200,000 on revenues that were 11% higher at £12.7m. All three divisions made a positive contribution in the year. Source is investing in DNA sequencing equipment and expects this to be a growth area. The outsourced pharma services operation made its first profit. Alliance Pharma reported a 44% increase in revenues to £31.2m in 2009 thanks to a combination of organic and acquisitive growth. Pre-exceptional profits jumped from £2.4m to £8.6m, although that doesn't include a £2.8m write-off mainly relating to the capitalised development costs of a drug. Alliance specialises in mature drugs and treatments which have a solid revenue base. Some of its drugs are more than 50 years old but they still have significant revenues. The recent purchase of Cambridge Laboratories for up to £16.4m has added cancer drugs to the portfolio. A much-improved second half performance helped eg solutions to return to profit in the year to January 2010. The operations management software supplier reported a 13% increase in revenues to £4.15m. A loss of £753,000 was turned into a profit of £99,000 in 2009. Higher gross margins and cost cutting were behind the improvement. More software licences were sold in the most recent period. Weak construction demand has hit trading at quantity surveyor Baqus and although work is being won it is at lower margins than in the past. The order book is flat at £8m. Management had already warned that the interim figures would be disappointing. Revenues fell from £3.98m to £3.85m in the six months to December 2009. A profit of £365,000 has turned into a loss of £470,000, including an exceptional charge for redundancies and office closures.