Statpro, the asset management portfolio analysis software company, issued an in-line trading update for the first four months of 2011, and managed to reduce net debt to c£3.3m at 30 April 2011 (from £5.5 million at the end of December 2010).
During the period, it signed up several new clients for its legacy product StatPro Seven, which as we mentioned in Stapro – managing its assets into the cloud, is now only available as a hosted service. But it is the SaaS product StatPro Revolution, which has got off to a good start, and is where most of Statpro’s future opportunities will come.
After trialing the product, RBC Dexia, its first white label custodian customer, is now making Revolution available to its global customer base. Revolution has now also got its first direct online clients, and Statpro signed its first distribution contract with Trasset International SpA, an Italian back office system vendor with 50 clients in asset management and private wealth. Statpro wants to set up a network of distributors to market, install and support the service.
It is still early days, so Statpro is wisely being cautious about the prospects. Nonetheless on the back of the positive start, it is bringing forward its planned investment in Asia, opening a Hong Kong office in September 2011. It is also investing further in sales and support activities. Statpro is also right to be keeping a tight control on the costs. But as it makes the necessary investments to grow the SaaS business further, margins are likely to come under increasing pressure.