LONDON (Alliance News) - Arcontech Group PLC on Wednesday said a modest increase in revenue drove up its pretax profit up for its recently ended financial year, but sales the sales cycle remains "longer than [it] would like".
The company, which provides real-time financial markets data processing and trading services, posted pretax profit of GBP302,329 for the year ended June 30, ahead of the GBP243,660 reported a year earlier after costs declined 2.0% to GBP1.8 million from GBP1.9 million.
Arcontech noted a 0.5% increase in revenue to GBP2.14 million from GBP2.13 million, which it said reflected "the situation that new business predominantly from existing customers only marginally exceeded the impact of the loss in revenue from the Asian focused bank, previously reported, from the start of the second half". This came as a contract was terminated.
The company said it intends to consolidate the number of shares prior to announcing a dividend, due to there being a "large number of shares in issue and to avoid fractional entitlements to any future dividend". Arcontech's current issued share capital stands at 1.54 billion shares.
Arcontech said its pipeline was currently unaffected by the UK's vote to leave the European Union, however said its prospects need to be tempered against uncertainties in the banking sector as a result of the low interest rate environment and potential issues following Brexit.
"We believe, as a result of continued product investment and from listening to our customers, we have a good product set that is suitable for our markets. Our focus is now fundamentally on winning new business and whilst we believe the opportunities for increased sales exist, the sales cycle remains longer than we would like. We also need to fully compensate for the reduction in revenue during the year from the Asian focused bank.," said Chairman Richard Last.
Shares in Acrontech were down 11% at 0.360 pence on Wednesday morning.
By Hannah Boland; hannahboland@alliancenews.com; @Hannaheboland
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Arcontech Group (ARC)