Escher confident for growth prospects

Specialist technology services firm Escher Group has said it is increasingly confident about its medium-term growth prospects on the back of recent contract wins in South Africa, Gibraltar, and the UAE, and a new e-commerce deal with Deutsche Post DHL.

The Boston and Dublin-based group, which specialises in point-of-sale e-commerce software solutions for leading international postal agents and other businesses, yesterday, as expected, reported first-half revenues of almost $11.1 million (€8.5m).

Pre-tax profits took a dip, however, going from $1.08m to $420,000. Revenue was down from nearly $12.9m a year earlier, as consulting services revenue declined on the back of a major contract moving from development and customisation phase to roll-out.

While the group said its recent move to a subscription-based revenue model would result in long-term gains, the move is likely to have a materially negative impact on current full-year revenues.

Nevertheless, management said, yesterday, that given the quality of the group’s pipeline and its current technology set, it “remains confident about the prospects for 2014 and beyond”.

“We have made good progress, over the last two years, in developing a range of complementary products based on our market-leading Riposte platform to address the growing e-commerce market opportunities around the world,” commented group chief executive Liam Church.

“Our customers are increasing their focus on digital commerce, which is driving demand for more points of presence, more flexible software solutions and an increasing range of additional services at these access points.

“These market developments, along with the investment we’ve made in developing an Enterprise mobile platform, gives us increasing confidence about our medium-term growth prospects,” he said.

Yesterday’s interim results also showed a near 62% annualised drop in diluted earnings per share to 1.5c, although net debt was reduced by over $1m to $3.54m. As with last year, the group does not plan to pay an interim divided to shareholders.