Crawley-based software house Macro 4 Plc has reported a slowly growing pre-tax profit that was up by only 20% because of investment in a marketing, advertising and regionalisation programme in the US where the company hopes to expand its activities. This drag on the company’s profits has been compounded by Macro’s divisions in Benelux and Spain which have failed to reach their interim targets because of local organisational weaknesses. On the plus side, however, the subsidiaries in Switzerland, Italy, and France have turned in strong half-year performances. Yet the company does not expect to sustain its 20% rise in profits over the year because of its troubled agents in Benelux and Spain and because the persistent weakness of the Deutsche Mark is affecting its German operation. But in the long term the company feels that its new IBM 4381 mainframe will enable it to enhance its product development efforts, particularly on the planned range of MVS operating system products and it looks forward to putting in a stronger performance with new products in the next financial year.
