LONDON (Alliance News) - Parity Group PLC, which last July moved to AIM from the London main market, Thursday said its pretax loss narrowed in 2103 as revenues grew, although the growth was partly offset by restructuring costs.
The IT services company posted a pretax loss of GBP949,000 for the year compared with a loss of GBP1.1 million in 2012, as revenues rose to GBP92.0 million from GBP85.9.
The company has been going through a revamp to focus it on two divisions with separate missions and strategies: talent management business Parity Professionals, and IT and digital marketing systems unit Parity Digital Solutions. It also revamped its board and management.
It booked strategic initiative costs of GBP1.1 million for the year, while restructuring costs were included within GBP1.6 million of total non-recurring costs. It said it expects the costs to reduce significantly in 2013.
Parity Professionals saw revenues increase in the second half, boosted by a strong performance from its Resources business unit, while revenue in Parity Digital declined slightly to GBP8.2 million, from GBP8.4 million, as it exited from loss-making fixed-priced contracts.
The company transitioned to AIM last July, saying it felt London's junior market was more suitable to it at its current stage in development.
"This was an important year for our group as we completed the three year turn-round, created two autonomous divisions and put the management in place to lead their planned growth," said Chairman Philip Swinstead in a statement.
The company said trading in the early months of 2014 had been in line with expectations, and it expects a good performance from both of its divisions in 2014.
Parity Professionals is expected to grow revenues and profits in future years, as early signs indicate an improvement in market and margins, Parity said. Party Digital will be renamed in 2014 to reflect its new strategic direction, and the company expects to make further small acquisitions to expand this division during the year.
The company isn't currently paying a dividend.
Shares in Parity were trading down 6.5% at 21.62 pence Thursday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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Parity (PTY)