Learmonth & Burchett Management Systems Plc has revised its profits forecast for the second half downwards. Analysts had expected Learmonth to make a significant increase on its first half performance in the second half, but now it looks as if the software house will not do much more than UKP500,000 profits in this six months. There are two main reasons for this adjustment: two or three large software orders to the combined value of UKP500,000 have been put on hold and so will not show through until the next financial year, which starts on May 1 1990. Secondly, Learmonth’s new software product System Engineer arrived too late to boost the figures. If the group had got the product to market just a month earlier it might have expected to take one or two large orders before the end of the financial year. As it is the two to three month sales cycle will push profits from the new product into the next year’s figures. However, Learmonth says it remains bullish and is still a healthy, profitable group – not enough to stop the shares dipping fivepence to 133p.
