The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode with London Stock Exchange Group's Chris Mayo has just been released. Listen here.
Good article in Money section P10 David Schwartz. Tips Vislink
HEALTHCARE LOCUMS PLC ("HCL" or "the Company") CORRECTION TO TRADING UPDATE This announcement replaces RNS announcement 1348J which was released at 7.00 a.m. on 2 August 2012. It has come to the Board's attention that there was an error in announcement 1348J. The cash balance stated at the end of the first half should have read GBP9.6m rather than GBP10.3m. There are no further changes.
traded
ACCESS INTELLIGENCE PLC ("Access Intelligence" or "the Group") UNAUDITED INTERIM FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE SIX MONTHS TO 31 MAY 2012 Unaudited 6 months to 31 May 2012 Unaudited 6 months to 31 May 2011 (£'000) (£'000) #Restated Continuing operations Revenue 3,930 3,572 Adjusted EBITDA 127 382 Exceptional re-organisation and centralisation costs (224) (202) Share Based Payments (25) (10) EBITDA (122) 170 Loss before and after tax (216) (31) Profit for the period from discontinued operations net of tax - 52 Total (loss)/profit for period after tax (216) 21 Continuing and discontinued operations Basic (loss)/profit per share (pence) (0.09) 0.01 Diluted (loss)/profit per share (pence) (0.09) 0.01 Continuing operations Basic loss per share (pence) (0.09) (0.01) Diluted loss per share (pence) (0.09) (0.01) # Restated - prior period comparatives have been restated to disclose Solcara as a discontinued activity Financial highlights: § Revenue up 10% year on year to £3.9m (H1 2011: £3.6m) § Contracted revenue not yet invoiced up 63% to £4.4m; up from £2.7m at the year end (November 2011) § AI Talent (formerly known as Cobent) lost £70k (H1 2011: loss £230k) excluding exceptional re-organisation and centralisation costs of £139k (H1 2011: £202k) § Loss after taxation was £216k (H1 2011: profit £21k) § Cash balance at 31 May 2012 £3.2m (H1 2011: £2.7m) § £250k received July 2012 from Solcara sale escrow § Recurring revenue of £2.7m (H1 2011: £2.4m), being 68% (H1 2011: 65%) of total revenue Operation highlights: § Significant investment in Group functions including a development centre in York § Rebranding - the Group rebranded under the "AI" banner - Cobent and MS2M became AI Talent and AI TrackRecord respectively; Due North's private sector offering is branded AI Procurement and Willow Starcom's south of England offering is AI Cloud § Appointment of Kole Dhoot to the Board, as CFO, on 6 March 2012 Michael Jackson, Executive Chairman, commented: "2012 is a year of investment to accelerate the Group's topline growth, product innovation and integrated Governance, Risk and Compliance GRC offering. Whilst AI Talent has suffered some set backs with personnel, the product is continually improving and sales in its target regulated markets are gaining momentum. The Group is already benefitting from the initial phases of the investment planned over the next six months, with revenue yet to be recognised now £7.1m up from £5.4m at the year end. Since the half year, we are also delighted that AI ControlPoint has signed new deals with a total contract value of £260k. The Board believes 2012 will be transformational, with significa
Excuse me but what does HCL stand for again?
Why HCL?
.. LONDON (ShareCast) - Healthcare Locums (LSE: HLO.L - news) , the troubled nursing, medical and social services recruitment firm has had some good news on the legal front. It was being sued in the US by an outfit called Permian Master Fund. That fund has now pulled out of the court case, leading to a 20% rise in Healthcare Locum's share price on Wednesday morning. Peter Sullivan, Chairman, commented "The board welcomes this decision. The filed legal proceedings were an unwelcome distraction and the board was always of the opinion that the claims were wholly without merit." Healthcare Locums announced in January of 2011 that it had discovered accounting irregularities, which led to a suspension in trading in the shares until September of last year. The irregularities amounted to the inclusion in the revenue figures of amounts which had not even been invoiced, as well as intangible asset valuations that were later found to be mistakes. Since then the entire board has been replaced. So far in 2012 the firm's shares have gained 46% although they are still down 96% on the price before the accounting problems were detected. BS ..
.. Kate Bleasdale was sacked from Healthcare Locums (LSE: HLO.L - news) , the company she founded, after she "directed, encouraged and condoned" the deliberate falsification of accounts. Ms Bleasdale was involved "in a systematic attempt to mislead the banks and investors of the profitability of the company", according to a legal judgment disclosed at the end of a failed case she had brought for unfair dismissal. The ruling against Ms Bleasdale's £12m unfair dismissal case marked a dramatic reversal for the controversial entrepreneur, who 10 years ago won a record £2.2m payout in a similar case with another medical recruitment company she set up. Both cases involved allegations of sexual impropriety, as well as unfair dismissal. But, while the first case, against Match Group, was settled out of court Ms Bleasdale's dispute with Healthcare Locums we(HCL) went to a tribunal. "HCL was fully entitled to take the view this [deliberate falsification of accounts] was gross misconduct which warranted the sanction of dismissal," the tribunal found. The ruling detailed emails in which Ms Bleasdale and her finance director Diane Jarvis discussed ways to doctor accounts to be used to obtain a £130m refinancing deal. These included improper capitalisation of costs, pre-dating the sale of a database and labelling management costs as exceptional items. Neither Ms Bleasdale nor HCL disagreed that company accounts had been doctored by the former finance director Diane Jarvis. However, Ms Bleasdale claimed she had no part in the action and had instead blown the whistle when it came to her attention. The tribunal disagreed and decided in favour of HCL, agreeing that Ms Bleasdale and Ms Jarvis falsified accounts that led to an overstatement of profit by around £10m. The false accounts were then used to obtain financing from Australian banks. The legal ruling is littered with the word "fraud" in relation to how the accounts for HCL were drawn up. It also details how the company's bank Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) uncovered instances of overstating accounts and double invoicing. HCL suspended trading in its shares in January 2011 after it uncovered what it then described as "serious accounting irregularities". The details revealed in the employment tribunal are the first clear picture of exactly what happened in the company in the lead up to its 2010 refinancing. Ms Bleasdale has said she will appeal the ruling. ..
Healthcare Locums Change of Accounting Period RNS Number : 5446G Healthcare Locums PLC 29 June 2012  Healthcare Locums plc ("HCL" or the "Company") Change of Accounting Period HCL announces its intention to amend its accounting period from a fixed 12 month period ending on 31 December each year, to a rolling 52 week period ending on the Sunday closest to 31 December each year, with immediate effect. In order to retain a December year end, the Company will report a 53 week period once every 5 to 6 years. In the current year the Company will release its interim results for the period 1 January to 1 July 2012 and its annual results for the period 1 January to 30 December 2012 in accordance with the timetable set out in the AIM Rules. Future results will report the following periods: Year Interims Annual 2013 26 weeks to 30 June 52 weeks to 29 December 2014 26 weeks to 29 June 52 weeks to 28 December 2015 26 weeks to 28 June 53 weeks to 3 January 2016
Bango PLC Final Results RNS Number : 0197G Bango PLC 25 June 2012  25 June 2012 Embargoed until 07:00 BANGO PLC ("Bango" or the "Company") Final Results Bango (AIM: BGO), the mobile web payments and analytics company, today announces its Final Results for the year ended 31 March 2012. FY12 Financial Highlights · Turnover for the year of £15.6m (FY2012: £19.3m) · Gross Profit £2.29m (FY2011: £2.49m) · LBITDA & SBP at £0.46m (FY2011: loss of £0.40m) · Total loss after tax £0.93m (FY2011: loss of £0.70m) reflecting an increased amortization charge for previously capitalized R&D. · Cash balance of £1.79m (£2.71m at 31 March 2011) · Successful Placing in June 2012 of £3m net with existing shareholders Results for the year do not include any material income from the agreements signed with Amazon and Facebook, but do include costs relating to the establishment of these relationships. FY12 Operational Highlights · Connected to in excess of 900 million consumers through more than 90 worldwide mobile operators · Increased breadth of global reach; now including operators in South America and Asia · Continuing momentum with industry leading names o Blackberry App World and Opera o New relationships with Facebook (Feb 2012) and Amazon (Dec 2011) o Post period relationships with Microsoft, Google Play and MasterCard · Superior user experience enhanced through product development o Powerful payments platform enhanced through increased scalability o New services launched to support new large scale customers · Bango Analytics volumes have more than doubled in 12 months · Strengthening the management team underway, in process of recruiting COO and CFO · New area of mobile wallets being developed
Healthcare Locums Outcome of Employment Tribunal RNS Number : 9672F Healthcare Locums PLC 22 June 2012  Healthcare Locums plc ("HCL" or the "Company") Outcome of Employment Tribunal HCL states that the Judgment of the London Central Employment Tribunal in the case of Kate Bleasdale v HCL was received today. All of Kate Bleasdale's claims failed. Her dismissal was held to be non-discriminatory and fair.
http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201205230700138804D
Healthcare Locums Notice of General Meeting RNS Number : 8554C Healthcare Locums PLC 08 May 2012  Healthcare Locums plc ("HCL" or the "Company") Notice of General Meeting Further to the Company's announcement that its Annual General Meeting will be held on 23 May 2012 at 11:00am at One Fleet Place, London, EC4M 7WS, the Company announces that immediately following this Meeting a General Meeting will be held. The Notice of the General Meeting and accompanying documentation was posted to shareholders after the close of business on Friday 4 May 2012 and is available on the Investor Relations section of the Company's website www.hclplc.com.
Kate Bleasdale near brink of bankruptcy Kate Bleasdale, the recruitment entrepreneur once feted for her success in business, is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Kate Bleasdale owes millions of pounds to law firms, banks and former business partners. Photo: Marina Imperi By Jonathan Russell 8:55PM GMT 04 Feb 2012 4 Comments Legal disputes, being sacked from the company she set up and unpaid debts have led to one of her creditors filing bankruptcy proceedings against her. The case is due to be heard at Kingston County Court on February 14, Valentine’s Day. Although the debt that could bankrupt Ms Bleasdale is relatively small, The Sunday Telegraph has discovered she owes millions of pounds to law firms, banks and former business partners. The debts have mounted since she was sacked from Healthcare Locums over “serious accounting irregularities”. The gravity of the accounting problems led the company to pass its findings to regulators. Around the same time as she was sacked from Healthcare Locums, Ms Bleasdale entered into settlements on separate legal disputes with two former business partners, recruitment firm Xchangeteam and inventor Debbie Forster. It is understood Ms Bleasdale has missed payments agreed in one or both legal settlements. Related Articles Healthcare Locums' £64m fundraising dealt blow by shareholders 09 Sep 2011 Healthcare Locums shareholders blast 'obtuse' company 08 Sep 2011 Healthcare Locums poised for £60m fund-raising 13 Aug 2011 Sacked Kate Bleasdale considering return to medical recruitment 04 Jun 2011 3M legal action over MRSA technology dispute 28 Aug 2011 A source close to Ms Bleasdale said she was not prepared to pay the £100,000 claim at the heart of the current bankruptcy hearing as she is pursuing a larger counterclaim against the creditor, Xchangeteam. The source also said Ms Bleasdale had significant net assets. Research by The Sunday Telegraph has revealed Ms Bleasdale and her husband John Cariss are currently selling properties in the UK and USA with combined asking price of over £20m. Before banking any of that money, a slew of creditors will need to be paid off. Three organisations have creditor claims over her eight-bedroom home in Kingston upon Thames. Her bank, Coutts, her former lawyers, Goodman Derrick, and a second law firm, Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, are listed on the Land Registry as creditors. It is understood the three firms could have combined claims running to millions of pounds on the Kingston house, currently on the market for £6.8m, reduced from £10m. Ms Bleasdale’s property in Colorado and a second house in Kingston are also for sale. The US property is described as “the ultimate contemporary ski lodge”, with eight bedrooms and 12 bathrooms. It was put on the market in December for $18.5m. Ms Bleasdale is also bringing a £6m employment case aga
Kate Bleasdale's day in court? Two years ago she was being feted as one of the UK’s leading entrepreneurs, a multi-millionaire with homes in London and Colorado and a 10pc stake in Healthcare Locums, the listed medical recruitment firm she set up. Kate Bleasdale faces the ignominy of being sacked from the business she created amid allegations of unlawful dividend payments and false accounting. Photo: Marina Imperi By Jonathan Russell 9:09PM BST 08 Apr 2012 3 Comments Now Kate Bleasdale faces a legal showdown that could define her already colourful business career. Her shares in Healthcare Locums are gone, sold at a fraction of the £25m they were once worth; her bank, lawyer and former business partners have charges over her assets; and she is facing bankruptcy proceedings brought by a creditor claiming little more than £100,000. All this on top of the ignominy of being sacked from the business she created amid allegations of unlawful dividend payments and false accounting. But after 14 months of setbacks, failed court cases and debt notices, Ms Bleasdale will attempt to launch her fight-back this week. On Tuesday a London employment tribunal will hear her £12m claim for wrongful dismissal and sexual discrimination against Healthcare Locums. The case is an eerie echo of a suit she brought, and won, over 10 years ago against another company she set up, Match Group. That time she picked up £2.2m for unfair dismissal and sexual harassment, a settlement reached on the court steps. This time a similar outcome seems highly unlikely. The new management of Healthcare Locums are understood to be determined to see the case out. No private deals. No out of court settlements.
Got my divi this a.m and reinvested - and sp has gone up!!
..Tycoon Kate Bleasdale brings £12m sex bias case against her firm By Anna White | Telegraph – Thu, Apr 12, 2012 22:16 BST ........Companies:...HEALTHCARE LOCUMSSHE . ..RELATED QUOTES. .Symbol Price Change HLO.L 2.06 -0.165 ^SHEY 835.29 -4.55 ...... A former nurse who built a business empire has begun a £12million legal action against a medical company she created, claiming that she was wrongfully sacked and that her former chairman touched her breast. Kate Bleasdale, 51, founded Healthcare Locums (LSE: HLO.L - news) , which became Britain’s biggest medical recruitment company. But she was sacked from the board when “serious flaws” emerged in the accounts. Yesterday, after 14 months of failed court cases and debt notices, she began a legal fightback, suing for wrongful dismissal and sexual discrimination accusing her former chairman of touching her “right breast twice” and touching her leg in a London bar. Miss Bleasdale, a mother of four twice named Entrepreneur of the Year, has found herself embroiled in a legal dispute with former colleagues before. She (SNP: ^SHEY - news) started as a nurse before building Match Group, which co-ordinated firms supplying agency nurses to NHS hospitals and which earned her £224,000 a year. After 14 years, she accused male directors of sexual discrimination, claiming they had left her “severely depressed and close to a nervous breakdown”. She said that she was eventually sacked for no good reason. The company settled out of court in 2002 for £2.2 million and Miss Bleasdale founded Healthcare Locums a year later with the money. On the opening day of her claim against Healthcare Locums at London Employment Tribunal, Miss Bleasdale claimed that her former chairman had behaved inappropriately during an impromptu meeting in August 2010. “Alan Walker was rather drunk when I arrived,” she said in her statement. “He sat on my right-hand side, and touched my right breast during the meeting. He also touched my leg.” She believes a memo she sent two colleagues about the meeting was forwarded to Mr Walker whom, she alleged, became “hostile and dismissive” towards her. On another occasion, she claimed that he was “loud, obnoxious and boasting about the pressure he put people under” such as a case in which he bankrupted a former business colleague who then killed his wife, daughter and himself. This was allegedly a reference to Christopher Foster, who murdered his wife and daughter then set fire to their Shropshire home after his company collapsed with crippling debts. Miss Bleasdale claims that she reported the accounting irregularities to Mr Walker and the board. Healthcare Locums will contest her claims during the case, which is due to last two weeks. ..
.Companies:...HEALTHCARE LOCUMSJarvis Plc . ..RELATED QUOTES. .Symbol Price Change HLO.L 2.06 -0.165 ...... Kate Bleasdale, the founder and former executive vice-chairman of Healthcare Locums, tried to get her fellow directors to fraudulently misrepresent company accounts in the lead up to a key £77m acquisition, a tribunal heard. A series of emails between Ms Bleasdale and fellow directors detailed at least eight ways to alter company accounts for 2010, it was alleged. These included changing sums allocated to capitalisation, acquisition of databases and other costs associated with acquisitions. Emma Smith, the barrister defending Healthcare Locums (LSE: HLO.L - news) (HCL) in the £12m employment tribunal brought by Ms Bleasdale, said: "You were looking at ways to increase profit, not asking why there was a gap between actual figures and what had been put in the accounts. You were suggesting ways of increasing profit rather than saying why do the accounts not reflect the actual numbers." Ms Bleasdale denied the allegation and claimed any fraud involved was not down to her. Instead, she said it was her finance director Diane Jarvis who had improperly presented the accounts. The allegations and counter-allegations presented to the tribunal centred around a few days around December 2010 and January 2011. According to emails read out to the court, directors of HCL including Mrs Jarvis (Other OTC: JVSPF.PK - news) , Ms Bleasdale and chief operating officer Mo Dedat were trying to reconcile accounts provided to banks, backing the company's refinancing and the £77m acquisition of Healthcare Australia, and the real numbers. Both Mrs Jarvis, who is not giving evidence, and Mr Dedat claimed they were put under pressure by Ms Bleasdale to improperly inflate the numbers for 2010. In evidence read out to the tribunal, Mr Dedat said at the time: "Kate is not listening to what we can present without audit support. I can see the train crash coming. My weakness was in not being able to challenge her early enough. When I did challenge her, the manner of her response I would describe as bullying." At the same time as directors were wrangling over the accounts Ms Bleasdale was also in dispute with the company over failure to pay her husband in excess of £1m in an earn out relating to the acquisition of his recruitment company Redwood Health. The tribunal heard allegations Ms Bleasdale held drunken calls with her then chairman Alan Walker over the issue. Ms Bleasale threatened to resign over the failure to pay the cash and threatened to sell all her shares in Healthcare Locums, at that point more than 10pc, in protest. ..
http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201204020700195482A
Healthcare Locums Notice of Proceedings RNS Number : 3226Y Healthcare Locums PLC 29 February 2012  Healthcare Locums plc ("HCL" or the "Company") Notice of Proceedings It has come to the attention of the Board of Healthcare Locums plc that proceedings have been filed against Healthcare Locums plc, Kathleen V Bleasdale, Diane Jarvis and Alan Walker (all being previous directors of Healthcare Locums plc) in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The proceedings have been filed by Permian Master Fund, LP; Permian Investments Partners, LP; Arundel Capital LLC; Arundel Long Fund LP; Arundel Hedge Fund LP; Privet Capital, LLC and Flinn Investments, LLC. The Summons and Complaint allege that Healthcare Locums plc and the named former directors made misrepresentations during 2010 concerning the Company's profitability and its accounting practices. The Summons and Complaint have not as yet been served on Healthcare Locums plc. However, the Company is taking legal advice and will update shareholders as and when appropriate.