Upheavals in the English educational system have resulted in a poorer than expected first six months results for Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire-based DRS Data & Research Services Plc in its maiden report since going public: the company counts schools and the like as its biggest market. Its turnover was down 16.2% to UKP5.8m compared to the equivalent period last year when turnover was UKP6.9m. And it says that until the changes in education have settled down, it remains cautious about this market, which is 70% of its total business. DRS specialises in data capture, concentrating on the production of optical mark readers and optical character recognition. Although the first 16 weeks saw record sales in the education market, there was a tail-off of 14% for the remainder of the period. This translated into a drop in pre-tax profit of 3.3% to UKP1.48m from UKP1.53m over the same period last year. This was also below DRS’ expectations of UKP1.5m. However, it will pay a dividend of one penny on November 3. DRS, which floated this April (CI No 2,405), blames a combination of factors for the softening of the education market: the changes in the system; and the purchase by Capita Group Plc of DRS’s schools distributor, SIMS Holding Ltd. However, it says it is optimistic about the education market in the long term. It adds that the sale to schools of optical mark readers is expected to represent a smaller proportion of growth as DRS penetrates other markets. It says sales of products into health doubled from last year. Export sales grew also and DRS says it will be ready to take advantage generally of the increasing market in for data capture. DRS also reports that in July it sold its controlling interest in its data logger subsidiary, also in Milton Keynes, Solutions From Technology Ltd to the workforce, but retained rights to the data logger product, the PDL 10, and a 15% stake residual stake in the company.
