Craneware Profits Down As It Still Seeks Big Customer

LONDON (Alliance News) - Craneware PLC Tuesday reported a fall in profits for its last financial year as it boosted its sales team in an effort to get bigger contracts from larger hospitals and medical centres, but it still has to win a major contract at the top end of the market.

The company reported a net profit of USD8.3 million in the year to end-June, compared with USD8.9 million a year earlier, even though revenues increased slightly to USD41.5 million, from USD41.1 million.

Craneware, which produces software that handles invoicing and revenues and sells it to healthcare providers in the US, has been restructuring and hiring new sales staff as it goes after new business, particularly with larger hospitals and healthcare groups.

"The strengthening of sales activity has continued and trading in the first few months of the new financial year has been healthy," the company said in a statement.

It said it had continued to make strong sales to small- and medium-sized healthcare providers, but had failed yet to achieve a significant sale at the large end of the market.

"With a high proportion of the market still relying on manual processes and an ever increasing level of auditing pressure on hospitals, the board is confident of Craneware's ability to grow its revenues and profits," it said.

It had USD30.3 million in cash at the end of the year, up from USD28.8 million a year earlier, even after returning USD4.7 million to shareholders by way of dividends.

Signalling its confidence, the company said it was proposing a final dividend of 6.3 pence, giving a total dividend of 11.5 pence, up from 10.5 pence last year.

The company's shares were down 1.6% at 402.04 pence Tuesday morning.

By Steve McGrath; stevemcgrath@alliancenews.com; @SteveMcGrath1

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