LONDON (Alliance News) - Mobile commerce company mporium Group PLC on Tuesday reported a wider pretax loss for the first half on lower revenue and increased costs, as it said it has appointed a new chairman and said it will acquire the rest of InTELEgentsia Ltd it does not own.
The company said the results reflect the performance of MoPowered Group PLC, mporium's former incarnation which the directors of the company consider to have been uncommercial and largely-operable. The company changed its name back in May and said it would relaunch its mobile commerce offering, following the acquisition of digital marketing agency Fast Web Media Ltd and a licensing deal with Oslo-listed Cxense ASA.
mporium said its pretax loss for the half to the end of June was GBP3.9 million, compared to a GBP2.4 million loss a year earlier, as a result of the restructuring activity. Revenue for the period fell to GBP559,065 from GBP753,204.
The group said it remains in the process of implementing its new strategy and will update on this in due course. As part of the plans, the group said it will acquire the shares in InTELEgentsia it does not already own. It acquired a 49.999% stake in the business in June when it acquired Fast Web Media. It will pay GBP250,000 for the rest of InTELEgentsia via the issue of 5.6 million shares at 4.5 pence per share. Shares in mporium were untraded on Tuesday, having last traded at 4.5 pence.
InTELEgentsia owns the intellectual property to two products, InTELEgentsia and Weatherfit.
"The new mporium products represent the next stage in the transformation of the business, which started with the announcements of June 8, 2015. Our new products are focused on the rapidly growing m-commerce market and we believe that they will have global reach. The acquisition of the minority interests in InTELEgentsia consolidates mporium's IP ownership rights, which is vital given the unique and innovative nature of our product," said mporium Chief Executive Barry Moat.
mporium also said it has appointed Nigel Walder as its non-executive chairman with immediate effect. He moves from his role as chief information officer for corporate functions at Barclays Bank PLC.
By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance
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