Trace Computers Plc followed up devastating figures for the six months to November 30 (CI No 1,637) with pre-tax losses of UKP471,000 for the year to May 31 as against profits of UKP1.8m in 1990. Boosted by acquisitions, turnover rose healthy rising 41.3% to UKP19.7m although operating profit crashed to UKP44,000 from UKP1.9m. The results include a full year’s contribution, for the first time, from Trace’s Micrologic, Gordon & Gotch, Westpac and Proteus acquisitions. Proteus continued to give cause for concern, according to managing director Colin Clarke, as its distribution software required more effort than expected in terms of research and development. He remains confident however that Proteus has great potential in one of the biggest growth areas. Micrologic is reported to be doing well and Gordon & Gotch has broken even, while Westpac has been badly affected and expects to report net losses of about UKP150,000. Trace’s original core businesses of insurance broking systems, property management systems and bespoke software development remained steady despite the property market recession. Clarke attributes this to repeat business in the reinsurance area and the comparatively safe area of property management. Pointing to the fact that Trace has been moving its products onto Unix systems, Clarke expects that the property area will respond to the lower threshold market prices. As for the financial software aimed at the banking and stockbroking sectors, Clarke comments that neither area is buoyant in terms of information technology spending. He explained that Unisys Ltd’s decision to put its global wholesale banking system on hold meant that Trace was not able to reap the benefits of its investments in this area, but he says that the stockbroking area is beginning to take off. Clarke expects to continue the investment in developing open systems software although he predicts the research and development budget will fall to around UKP400,000 from the UKP1.4m invested last time.
