Trace Computers Plc of London has seen profits and turnover drop in its results for the year ending May 31. The company blames the downturn on the cancellation of the London Stock Exchange’s Taurus paperless trading system in March. Trace, which was developing Taurus-ready software, is now sweating it out as potential customers, pressured to buy Taurus-compliant software, postpone their decisions and shop around for products. Net profit for the year plummetted 61% to UKP152,000 on turnover that fell 6.6% to UKP18m. Financial director Peter Stolerman explained: We have spent a lot of money developing Taurus-compliant products. We had a number of good prospects which we hoped would have signed up but they all deferred – they said that they wanted more time over their decision. This means that part of the company’s research and development cost, which amounts to UKP2m annually, were not recovered. Lower interest rates reduced financing costs slightly and UKP630,000 was saved by an ongoing cost review. The company has nine separate trading divisions, covering insurance and reinsurance software development, stockbroking software, imaging applications, personnel recruitment, consumable supplies and bespoke software. The recruitment consultancy, Prospect, broke even after making a profit last year while the imaging company, Pink, made a loss after making a major investment in imaging and laser disk storage technology last year. The scaling down of the computer supplies business, which happened last imterin, reduced turnover by UKP1.6m. The firm continues to make investments in its Twins 2000 insurance and reinsurance broking software, which is currently being launched, the TBS distribution software and the BlueChip stockbroking software. Trace will maintain its dividend of 0.9p, making a total of 1.45p for the year.
