Money that Electronic Data Processing Plc, the Sheffield, UK- based software and services company, is spending porting its database management tool, UniVision, to the Windows NT operating system will transform the company’s prospects – according to the directors. Certainly it needs a boost quickly as profits have continued to fall at the half year stage. And the market is still to be convinced as the share price is languishing around 60p – valuing the company marginally above its balance sheet net assets. For the moment all is gloom with net profits for the six months to 31 March down 48.8% on last year at 526,000 pounds and revenues 17.8% lower at 6.5m pounds. But Chief Executive Richard Jowitt feels that the market hasn’t factored EDP’s software development spend into the share price yet. The company’s research and development expense is running at about 14% of revenues, a healthy figure for the software industry. But the Windows version of UniVision is not due before the the end of the year. I anticipate that results for the year will be acceptable said chairman Michael Heller, though it is not clear what he is basing his optimism on. The interim dividend remains flat at 0.667 pence per share.
