Profitable trading in the US for the whole of the first half of fiscal 1989 and growth of business far in excess of growth in development costs were the highlights of Learmonth & Burchett Management Systems Plc in the six months to October 31, but the real news from the company is that a great deal of effort is being put into an acquisition programme that will have strategic significance beyond the immediate impact on revenues and profits, chairman Rainer Burchett reveals. He says that the company hopes to conclude some of the negotiations shortly and that they will add complementary products and services that should boost revenues for years to come, as well as extending the company’s geographic markets. On the continent, Learmonth has already concluded marketing agreements with Philips Business Systems and with Softlab GmbH, and has increased the range of hardware on which its products run and the applications with which they interact as a result of agreements with ICL, Ingres Corp and Informix Software Inc. Noting that the engine of the 46% rise in turnover to UKP8m for the half was the core consultancy activities, the company says that 1990 should be a sig-nificant year for new products, some internally generated from the research and development effort, others being bought in as a result of the planned acquisitions. In particular, the phased introduction of a multiuser computeraided software engineering tool is planned to begin early next year.
