ACT Group Plc has began the long process of digesting the BIS Group, acquired on July 14 (CI No 2,202) and 11 weeks of BIS sales have made it into the company’s turnover, with an initial contribution of UKP24.4m. Setting that to one side, ACT’s turnover on continuing operations grew 15.4% to UKP83.2m, rather than the 49% reported in the raw figures. Last half’s star performer in the Financial Software Products group was ACT Kindle, purveyor of open systems software to wholesale and retail bankers. This year, despite the fact that Financial Software as a whole, raked up record sales and profits, Kindle showed a reduced profit. The company believes that this is a blip and points to record orders in the first half, saying it is confident that the year end figures will show Kindle continuing to grow. At the same time BIS banking systems performed above expectations. By contrast, ACT says the BIS Information Systems division has underperformed since the acquisition, due to a shortfall in orders over the summer, an organisational re-vamp has now combined the BIS arm with ACT Logsys, the least profitable of the ACT Information Systems businesses as reported (CI No 2,290).
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