Insurance broker C E Heath Plc has announced full year pre-tax profits up 698.4% at #11.8m on last year, on turnover of #175.1m. The group’s figures would have been even better but for the charges of #18.5m arising from the reduction of its share in Heath International Holdings, an underwriting operation in Australia, and an Australian high court ruling in favour of the Victorian Accident Compensation Commission. The group’s computer services operation, comprising Datasure and Peterborough Software, contributed pre-tax profits of #5.3m, up 13% on last year, on turnover of #44.3m. Datasure, which saw growth of 20% to over #1m, supplies administrative and electronic trading systems to Lloyd’s of London brokers and the underwriting company sector in the UK and abroad. It also saw expansion in the staff agency and payroll services divisions, outside the insurance sector. Peterborough returned profits of #4.3m up 12%, although its UK turnover was flat. The software subsidiary saw good growth in its overseas markets, particularly Australia and New Zealand, and expansion into Holland and South Africa. The company continued to see a shift in its sales from mainframe to Windows and Unix, but chairman Michael Kier believes that a core of mainframe users will remain and provide a market for product enhancement many years to come.
