SaaS-oriented governance, risk and compliance solutions provider Access Intelligence’s 2012 first half has been little better than the last financial year which ended on a down note (see here). With management talking about 2012 being a year of investment and forgoing short term profits in favour of long term shareholder value the rest of the year is not shaping up particularly well either.
A good amount of the investment will have gone on the acquired AI Talent division (formerly Cobent), whose performance is still acting as a drag on group performance. AI Talent lost £70k for the six months to May 31 compared to a loss of £230k in the year ago period but once you add in exceptional reorganisation and and centralisation costs of £139k, the total loss is not much less than year ago. In addition to putting resources into AI Talent, Access has also been investing in product R&D, and bolstering its management team with a full time CFO, CTO and CMO which has all eaten into profits.
Revenue from continuing operations (results have been restated to show Solcara as a discontinued activity) was £3.9m, which was 10% up on the year but the company made a loss after taxation of £216k compared to a marginal profit of £21k this time last year. It is not all bad, cash levels rose from from £2.7m to £3.2m and revenue yet to be recognized now stands at £7.1m vs £5.4m at year end. Based on these numbers and management statements Access Intelligence will have a hard year ahead of it.