LONDON (Alliance News) - StatPro Group PLC Wednesday left its interim dividend unchanged, after a fall in revenue and higher expenses resulted in a lower profit for the for the first-half of its financial year.
StatPro, which provides portfolio analysis and asset pricing services for the asset management industry, said its pretax profit fell to GBP1.1 million in the six months to June 30, down from GBP1.9 million a year earlier.
It said the main reason for the fall in profit was due to increased expenditure on sales people, marketing activities, and development as part of its cloud transition.
In a statement last month, the group said its financial results for the first-half of the year were in line with market expectations, supported by both new and existing clients, but warned that sterling strength hurt both revenue and profits during the period.
StatPro said Wednesday that revenue in the first-half came in at GBP15.7 million, down from GBP16.5 million in the first-half of last year, on the back of lower revenue in North America and Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The company left its interim dividend unchanged at 0.85 pence.
StatPro said revenue from StatPro Revolution - its cloud-based portfolio analysis service - drove growth in the period, driven by an increase in StatPro Revolution client numbers to 322, up from 220 client last year.
StatPro said its sales pipeline continues to grow, while revenue from other areas of the business it is investing in - Data and Risk - also grew solidly in the first-half.
"The combination of an improving product and the increased capacity of our sales team will bolster further growth... We look forward to the rest of 2014," said Chief Executive Justin Wheatley in a statement.
StatPro shares were trading 0.5% higher at 84.38 pence Wednesday morning.
By Rowena Harris-Doughty; rowenaharrisdoughty@alliancenews.com; @rharrisdoughty
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