Mortice hires new CFO after rapid first-half growth

(ShareCast News) - Mortice, an AIM listed security and facilities management company, has appointed Sandeep Kumar Gupta group chief financial officer with immediate effect as it continues to grow at a rapid pace.According to interim result released between Christmas and New Year's Eve, group revenues grew by 80% to $91.9m and profit before tax increased by 890% to $3.07m.The group's acquisitions of O&G in the UK and Frontline in Singapore have been fully integrated and have both contributed strongly during the period, with O&G delivering $0.90m of operating profits while Frontline contributed $0.95m."Once again, the group has demonstrated its ability to deliver significant growth through a combination of organic and acquisitive investment. The opportunity in India remains exciting and there is still significant scope for scalability across the group's target markets and cross-selling potential across its client base," said the company's broker, FinnCap in a note on Tuesday.The group also raised £2.3m through a placing of 3.07m shares at 75p per share in December to repay short term debt and help drive future organic growth in existing operations and provide the funds for future acquisitions.New CFO Gupta is a chartered accountant with 24 years post qualification experience and is also a certified treasury manager professional. He has worked with a variety of companies and was most recently group CFO for SU-Kam Power Systems, the largest power solutions company in India.Chairman Manjit Rajain highlighted Gupta's "comprehensive experience in treasury and finance functions".He added: "His expertise will be invaluable in assisting the growth of Mortice Group, particularly in evaluating and undertaking acquisition, investment and strategic opportunities."With the acquisitions now fully bedded in, Rajain said he expects further benefits during the second half with significant scope for new business from a recent framework agreement agreed with London Universities.The share price was flat at 94.50p at 1000 GMT.