The company had intended 1996 to be a turnaround year, but even under new management, times have continued to be bleak at Hemel Hempstead, UK-based McDonnell Information Systems Group Plc. Things have never been the same since McDonnell’s management bought the company for 125m British pounds – about 130 pence a share – in 1992 and floated a year later at 260 pence. Shares fell to 51.5 pence on Friday after the group turned in pre-tax losses for the six months to June 30 of 9.2m pounds, which includes a 7.4m pound restructuring charge, up from 2.3m pounds last time on revenue that fell 24% to 60.5m pounds. The ravaged Pick applications specialist warned the situation was unlikely to improve until next year, but chief executive officer John Klein stressed the restructuring was largely completed. During the half McDonnell sold its Australian and New Zealand subsidiaries to Continuum Australia Ltd (CI No 2,938) for a total of 7m pounds cash, with 5.6m pounds payable on completion and t he balance over the following two years. Operations in the rest of Europe have been abandoned in an effort to concentrate on its core UK business, (CI No 2,973) and additional management has been brought in to spearhead the group. Mike Powell, formerly head of information technology operations at Oracle Corp and Digital Equipment Corp, joined the firm in September as managing director of UK technical operations. Former vice-president at both Wang Laboratories Inc and Ascom Timeplex Corp, Alan Davis joined the group in July as UK business operations managing director.
