NMW Computers Plc of Nantwich, Cheshire is keen to publicise its change of business profile following its disastrous end of year figures which revealed a pre-tax loss of UKP945,000 on turnover down 35% to just over UKP10m. Interim figures are due out in a couple of weeks and chairman Nigel Banister is confident that a turnround back into profitability is on the cards but declined to comment on whether this would be reflected in NMW’s half year performance. The company was set up in 1972 to offer stockbrokers a settlement system via a bureau service. For 16 years this business served NMW well, but then came the October ’87 crash, the impact of which is to be seen in the company’s last annual figures. Consequently the decision was made this spring to move more into front office services for brokers and to provide those services to the wider financial industry. NMW is now divided into four business centres: stockbroking services, data services, software services and network services. This restructuring has led to a focus on services and system integration for the securities industry and beyond to the wider financial industry. Banister was particularly proud of the way NMW had brought facilities management into its front office services, having taken over UKP1m in revenue from this area alone in the past two months. A new market that NMW is interested in because of its link with the securities industry is the building society sector. This sector is of interest to NMW for two reasons. Firstly it is moving to the X25 networking system. NMW of course has its own international X25 packet network which currently supports electronic trading and international information systems such as Infolink. However, to strengthen its ability to provide networking solutions to this expanding market NMW has teamed up with Swindon-based IPAC Systems Ltd. The idea being that NMW will provide operational and control expertise while IPAC will offer design and supply experience. Secondly, the Building Societies Commission is strongly recommending that all building societies have a disaster recovery agreement. In this context, Banister believes the fact that NMW has a few weeks ago won a contract with the Britannia Building Society for its ICL VME disaster recovery service is significant in terms of a future growth area. This service, which is called Fortress, may grow through custom from large stockbrokers as well since they may soon also have to prove they have a disaster recovery buiness in order to operate legally.

Winterflood Securities

As regards NMW’s settlement development tool Taurus, Banister does not consider this to be a significant area of growth since the company already has a very large share of this market. On the other hand, he claims that there is a substantial business opportunity to be found through Taurus as global standards are implemented in stock exchanges throughout the world. In terms of NMW’s front office products, the company has now converted around 66% of its custom from its proprietary system to DEC VAXes, and is buying in new DEC products to sell to this market. ECHO, Electronic Collection and Handling of Orders, is selling very well, for example, and NMW says that its electronic data interchange services have been well received by the City, and are also being taken up by organisations such as British & Commonwealth. Finally in an effort to break into the lucrative opportunities to be found in selling software to City market makers or jobbers, NMW has become an IBM agent. The company’s first project with IBM, worth UKP500,000, is to develop an integrated front and back office system for the market maker Winterflood Securities. The software to be known as Equity will run on IBM’s fault-tolerant System 88 version of the Stratus Computer machines, and is due for completion in six months time. NMW has also signed a joint marketing agreement with IBM to launch Equity as a product for wider use. Other IBM-related activities include the building and transference of further software products onto the AS/400 range, some of w

hich will be released this autumn. Following this flurry of activity to restore lost revenue, NMW’s interims are awaited with interest. – Katy Ring