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Filed accounts for the most recent full year (ending March 31 2011) showed that SSP, the UK supplier of software and services to the international insurance, underwriting and intermediary markets, didn’t have the best of years. Total revenue was down c2% to £60m. The company has had a challenging run (see SSP moves forward after a tough couple of years) but is one of the UK’s larger suppliers and well within the top 50 for UK revenues.
Although the UK remains its largest market by far, it was only up by 1% to 2% (£58m vs. £57m). SSP’s growth prospects lie overseas, so CEO Laurence Walker told us when we spoke to him a few months ago. However Africa, its second largest market with revenue of £1.9m during the year, was down by around 50%. Europe dropped by more than 50%. The US grew c16% although from a small base and revenue was only £0.1m.
There was diversity within the company with the Intermediary and Corporate Broker Division falling by c7% to £45.6m but c16% growth for the Insurer Systems Division to £14.4m, marking this the growth area for the company.
Despite the lower revenue figure, a fall of just 2% in terms of overall revenue was not too bad considering the economic backdrop of the reporting period – with the March 2011 year end this set of accounts did not benefit from the full spending bounce we saw in H1 calendar 2011.
It still has work to do to and has made two new appointments to help push itself forward. Carol Thompson has been appointed chief financial officer and Yvonne Spalding as professional services director. They follow the appointment of Stephen Lathrope as managing director of the insurer division earlier this year.
