Boxhill Technologies reports "encouraging" first half

(ShareCast News) - Boxhill Technologies said on Monday that its first-half sales are in line with the company's expectations following the acquisition of Emexpay and Freepaymaster.Sales were up 13% to £1.23m, with gross profit of £828,000 from £780,411 in the first half of last year.Operating profit, meanwhile, rose to £301,600 from £323,000. The figures are unaudited and extracted from the management accounts, with the full accounts for the half due in September.Executive chairman Lord Razzall said: "The first half performance is encouraging and comes at a time when the company is only just starting to realise the benefits of the acquisition of Emexpay and Freepaymaster. "As we continue to invest in staff and technology we have seen an increase in overhead to £527,000 (1 Feb 2015 to 31 July 15 £457,000), however the board has managed to minimise the impact on the operating profit, and the business is operationally geared to expand sales on the current level of overhead."Boxhill said Emexpay has brought about cost savings and the ability to review and renegotiate terms with its acquiring banking network, improving gross margins and opening up new opportunities in the credit card processing business. At 1410 BST, Boxhill shares were up 18.3% to 0.28p.