Feedback Plc’s interim results were slightly down on last time following a slowing of profits in its Data subsidiary and a loss in its US arm. The Crowborough, East Sussex-based firm’s Feedback Data subsidiary, which does time management and data collection equipment, and contributes 41% of the group’s business, was a victim of the flat UK economy, which managing director Roger Barnett believes is only just starting to lift in this industry sector. The Data firm, which also has an office in Holland, will be expanded into another country in Europe in the next half. It was initially intended to be a joint venture but Barnett, who would give no further details, said that now it would be mainly a Feedback Data project, with a few key individuals involved. The firm obviously has the cash to do it, though, and to prove this it gave shareholders a 0.5 pence interim dividend – no dividend was paid last time. Even so, it will have to pay double that in six months time to achieve the 1.5p dividend paid out at the end of last year. Other group subsidiaries, not involved in computers, are Feedback Instruments, which sells educational instrumentation equipment, and Feedback Inc in the US, which sells the equipment in the US.
