(Alliance News) - Public and not-for-profit sector software services firm Castleton Technology PLC declared its inaugural dividend Tuesday as revenue continued to improve but profit tumbled after one-off gains reported the year before fell away.
For the year ended March, pretax profit narrowed 33% to GBP1.2 million from GBP1.8 million the year prior. This was despite revenue rising 13% to GBP26.4 million from GBP23.3 million the year before.
Profit performance was hurt by a sharp fall in exceptional credits to GBP11,000 from GBP1.4 million the year prior. This was primarily due to the revaluation of contingent consideration related to Castleton's payments to former London-listed 365 Agile Group.
"It has been another year of significant progress for Castleton, delivering strong organic growth," Castleton Chief Executive Officer Dean Dickinson said. "This has not only resulted in the continued reduction in net debt, but it has also enabled operational growth through the acquisition of Deeplake, the perpetual licence for our modelling solution, the launch of new digital solutions and expanded development capabilities with Castleton India."
Net debt fell to GBP5.1 million from GBP6.3 million the year prior. Castleton also proposed a 1 pence per share maiden dividend.
"A number of milestone projects are now fully-live and operational with three early adopter sites for integrated solutions," Dickinson added. "These combined customer references have been a major contributor to us winning the new integrated solutions contract in January with Connect. The early adopters and this new contract demonstrate the strength of our proposition, our ability to cross-sell and the trust our customers have in our capabilities to deliver on their vision for complete digital transformation."
"Trading since the end of the financial year has been in line with expectations and we expect to see seasonality between the two halves of the financial year, with earnings and cash flows being stronger in the second half than the first half," Dickinson said.
Separately on Tuesday, Castleton announced it had secured a new four-year contract worth GBP1.0 million from existing customer Grand Union Housing Group.
The contract will see Castleton deliver its document management solutions and has already got underway in being set up. It is expected to be completed by late summer.
Shares in Castleton were 1.3% lower at 105.15 pence in London on Tuesday.