On Friday, RM completed the disposals that it promised in last September’s Strategic Review (see RM clears out old furniture and rearranges the rest) with the sale of Easytrace, part of the AMI business. The loss-making access control and cashless catering systems business was sold to Jonas Computing for an estimated £0.65m in cash. The Jonas group is a logical home for Easytrace since its UK operations include Gladstone Computing, which has an existing cashless catering offering. RM Education will continue to sell Easytrace products under a non-exclusive reseller agreement.
Having completed the disposal of non-core assets, the newly restructured RM will be free to focus on its education technology ‘knitting’ in the UK. But with the UK education SITS market still hampered by budget constraints (see UK Public Sector Market Trends and Forecasts) there can be no doubt that will have its challenges too. We’ll be watching with interest to see what wonders Executive Chairman Martyn Ratcliffe and his team – now minus Group MD Rob Sirs (see here) – can perform.