LONDON (Alliance News) - IT services business Triad Group PLC said its loss widened in the first half, following a "frustrating" first quarter which was beset by a number of project delays.
The Milton Keynes-based company posted a pretax loss of GBP199,000 in the six months ended September 30, compared with a loss of GBP151,000 a year earlier, which it blamed on project delays causing lower than expected levels of utilisation in the consulting business.
The consulting arm provides technology advice to businesses.
It said the division's losses occurred in April and May and contributed a significant proportion of the loss reported in its overall results. However, since then trading has improved steadily with a number of "encouraging" developments in the business.
Group revenue fell to GBP9.2 million, from GBP9.8 million, reflecting the struggles experienced across the firm's two arms - consulting and resourcing/recruitment.
The consulting business saw revenue fall to GBP1.2 million, from GBP1.4 million, blamed on a fall in subcontracted third party revenue of GBP0.1 million from GBP0.2 million a year earlier.
The recruitment division also saw a fall of 7% in the average number of contractors on site during the period together with a small decrease in average day rates. Revenue dipped to GBP8.0 million from GBP8.5 million in 2012.
Triad said it implemented a number of successful strategies to address the decline in contractor numbers and since the beginning of the current financial year to the date of this report, contractor numbers have increased month-on-month.
Despite its woes, Triad said it was confident that it will return to profit.
"We have already seen an increased level of interest in our services which now include ICT strategy development, enterprise architecture, programme/project management, software design & development and business intelligence, it said.
In November, Triad was also successful in being listed on the new Government Digital Services Framework providing development, analysis and architecture services.
The company will not pay an interim dividend, unchanged from the previous period.
By Anthony Tshibangu; anthonytshibangu@alliancenews.com; @AnthonyAllNews
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Triad (TRD)