AIT shares slumped 32.7% to 36 pence ($0.66) on the news and, with a market value down to 18.1m pounds ($32.6m), the company is now vulnerable to a takeover.
While stock market analysts had been looking for pre-tax profits of 3.1m pounds ($5.7m) on revenue of 21m pounds ($38.7m), they have pruned their forecasts to pre-tax profit of 1.5m pounds ($2.8m) on revenue of 17m pounds ($31.3m).
AIT’s strength has been in the financial services sector but the company believes that its Portrait application has considerable potential in public services and it is a delay in the decision-making process of an overseas public services organization that is blamed for the lower than expected revenue.
The company said that its primary focus has been increasing revenue from licenses for Portrait and these rose 70.3% to 6.3m pounds ($11.6m) last year. It expects Portrait revenue to continue to grow in the coming years and to be responsible for a greater portion of the total.
