Interim Results

Concurrent Technologies PLC 21 September 2004 Concurrent Technologies Plc Interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2004 Concurrent builds on market leading position Concurrent Technologies Plc, which manufactures high end embedded computer products for critical applications in the defence, transportation, communications and industrial markets, announces its interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2004. • Market conditions continue improvement from 2003 o Sales and marketing activity at record levels for Concurrent o Gross margins of 40% holding up well • Balance sheet strength: £2.8 million net cash • Recommended dividend 0.25p per share • Component supply issue, now resolving with no expected long term impact • New product development gathers pace thus differentiating the company from its competitors o Wider range of products o Development agreement with Thales Group starting to bear fruit Michael Collins, Chairman, commented: 'High levels of expenditure in the USA on electronic defence systems and homeland security projects continues, as does investment in new telecoms and internet security applications in the USA and China. We are directing most of our investment in R&D towards these markets. 'Although the component supply problem we encountered last year pushed us into modest loss in the first half of this year, we are confident of a strong financial performance in the second half. We are seeing unprecedented numbers of systems integrators requiring our boards. In the first half of 2004 we sold to 17% more users than we did in the same period last year. Most of these purchasers are still only acquiring development quantities and have yet to require production quantities from us. Hence our confidence about the future.' 21 September 2004 Enquiries: Concurrent Technologies Glen Fawcett, Managing Director 01206 752626 College Hill Nicholas Nelson / Sam Allen 020 7457 2020 Chairman's Statement Business Summary Concurrent Technologies designs, builds and supplies high end embedded computer products to the defence, communication, transportation and industrial markets. These computer products are integrated into a variety of applications which require very high levels of processing power and superior levels of reliability; applications include military systems, communications, networking, medical imaging, industrial automation and scientific research. The main product range includes single and dual processor computer boards using Intel(R) and Motorola(R) Central Processing Units (CPUs) for the CompactPCI(R), VME and Multibus II architectures. In addition to hardware design capability, our engineering teams undertake a significant amount of software and firmware development to provide interoperability between products, generate test software both on-board and for production test purposes, and also provide support for leading embedded and real-time operating systems. The largest single market for our products is now defence, closely followed by communications. Together these markets in the first six months of 2004 accounted for 76% of our sales by value. Financial Conditions in the specialised part of the single board computer market in which we operate, having improved through 2003, continue to improve this year. There is a weakening of demand in the worldwide consumption of microprocessors but we see this as primarily affecting sales to the consumer sector and not the defence and commercial end user sectors in which we operate. Group turnover for the first six months of 2004 was £2.98million. As anticipated turnover was substantially affected in this period by the announcement of the end of life of a CPU which was a core component of our most popular boards. As a consequence, the company made a pre-tax loss for the period of £130,896 (2003 profit £351,562). Gross margins in the first six months of the year at just over 40% have held up well notwithstanding the reduced turnover. We expect this to improve as volumes increase and extended temperature range products (which attract higher margins) start to become a significant element of the total. We have controlled costs well without reducing expenditure on R & D and our margins remain good. Consequently we ended the period with cash of £2,846,555 and no borrowings. Review of Operations The early discontinuance of the key component referred to above affected us throughout the first six months of 2004. That problem is now behind us as we have released a new range of VME and CompactPCI(R) boards based on the Intel(R) Pentium(R) M CPU (including extended temperature range versions) which has received wide acceptance from our customers. We believe the effect of the problem was to delay our progress for about 8 months from the start of the problem in September 2003. We also believe that it has not caused us any material damage other than short term loss of revenue. Most of our products are aimed at applications for benign environments, but we are injecting increasing effort to win projects in less benign environments as the margins which can be achieved in these projects are higher. We now have an ' E' range which is designed to operate at temperatures in the range -25 degrees to +70 degrees Celsius and a 'K' range designed to operate between -40 degrees and +85 degrees Celsius. Boards which operate in these extreme conditions are not as price sensitive and higher margins can be achieved. We do not at present offer any boards which will also withstand high vibration and high shock levels and operate in a conduction cooled environment. This will change shortly as a result of our joint venture with the Thales Group under which we have designed a new non-ruggedised board for them which they will take and themselves produce ruggedised versions. We will be able to sell the ruggedised versions as part of our range alongside Thales who already include our non-ruggedised versions in their range. We have never seen as much customer interest in our products as we are seeing at the moment and sales and marketing activity is at a very high level. The focus of our marketing has changed over the last three years; in 2001 the largest part of our sales was to the medical sector, but since then defence and communications projects have become increasingly important to us. We are being invited to quote on larger projects than in the past, and the U.S.A. has become our largest market. During the first six months of this year we have opened a sales office in Orange County, California on the West Coast of the U.S.A. The significant investment in new Computer Aided Design equipment we made in 2003 is now yielding productivity gains. The new equipment has already decreased the time taken to design the layout of a board while simultaneously enabling us to increase a board's functionality. Having already reduced the layout time taken per board we expect to achieve a 50% overall reduction by the end of this year as our understanding of the new tools continues to improve. This is an important advance as shorter development times reduce our time to market, which is a key issue that differentiates us from most of our competitors. Future Strategy We have not reduced our investment in research and development. We intend to continue the expansion of the range of hardware we design and build, and to keep increasing our investment in software and firmware engineering so as to make our hardware operate with an ever increasing range of software products. In the first six months of 2004 we have ported LynxOS(R) and Linux(R) to our Motorola (R) PowerPC(R) based products. Our strategy is to continue to support and expand all three of our existing embedded computer technology architectures. These are VME CPUs, powered by Intel (R) and Motorola(R) PowerPC(R), and CompactPCI(R) and Multibus II, both powered by Intel(R) CPUs. Multibus II is coming towards the end of its life but while it is still reasonably widely accepted we will support it, if only because there is little competition and margins are good. We see VME as having strong growth still, particularly for defence and industrial applications. The CompactPCI(R) architecture was extended a few years ago to include 64-bit/66MHz capability which gave this bus architecture more bandwidth than VME or Multibus II, and therefore made it suitable for communications applications even though in recent times VME has been speeded-up. We see this continuing for some time, but there is a new architecture that is gaining market acceptance, Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (AdvancedTCA(R)), using very high speed serial inter-connections based on switched fabric methods. Its larger board size offers higher functionality, better cooling and an improved price/ performance ratio. We believe this will prove popular with the telecommunications system builders and we intend to produce AdvancedTCA(R) boards for the market. In anticipation of increased demand on our production and test facility and in response to the ever increasing complexity of our boards, we are enhancing the methods by which we test our products before shipment. To this end we have recently purchased an automated optical inspection machine which electronically examines the quality of the thousands of connections on our boards. We are also looking at installing a further machine for selecting and placing microchips on the surface of the boards and another reflow oven so as to create a second, and much faster, production line suitable for building larger production runs. We have expanded our sales capability in the U.S.A. this year and are conscious that some of our larger opportunities are coming from China. We are turning our sales attention to China where we are currently operating through distributors. It is likely we will open a sales office there in the next year. We continue to look to enhance our capabilities to produce complete embedded computer systems as well as the component boards which go in them and to take advantage of outsourcing opportunities which come from customers who wish to downsize in house engineering staff to reduce fixed costs. Dividend The outlook for our business in the second half of this year and particularly into next year continues to improve. We have therefore decided to pay an interim dividend of 0.25 pence per share (the same as the interim and final dividends last year). The total cost of this interim dividend will amount to £181,750. The ex-dividend date for the dividend is 29th September 2004, the record date is 1st October 2004 and payment will be made on 22nd October 2004. Outlook High levels of expenditure in the USA on electronic defence systems and homeland security projects continue, as does investment in new telecoms and internet security applications in the USA and China. We are directing most of our investment in R&D towards these markets. Although the component supply problem we encountered last year pushed us into modest loss in the first half of this year, we are confident of a strong financial performance in the second half. We are seeing unprecedented numbers of systems integrators requiring our boards. In the first half of 2004 we sold to 17% more users than we did in the same period last year. Most of these purchasers are still only acquiring development quantities and have yet to require production quantities from us. Hence our confidence about the future. Corporate Governance As an AIM listed company Concurrent Technologies Plc is not obliged to comply with the Combined Code. We do however acknowledge the overall importance of the guidelines and apply as many of the principles therein as are appropriate to a company of our size and nature. Consequently we have appointed Clive Thomson as an additional non-executive director. All companies and product names are trademarks of their respective organisations. Consolidated Trading Results Unaudited Unaudited Audited six months six months year ended 30/6/04 30/6/03 31/12/03 £ £ £ Turnover 2,975,852 4,036,489 7,303,805 Profit / (loss) on ordinary activities before (130,896) 351,562 280,283 taxation Taxation on profit on ordinary activities 10,878 85,609 (50,662) Profit / (loss) for the period (141,774) 265,953 330,945 Dividend 181,750 181,750 363,500 Retained profit / (loss) for the period (323,524) 84,203 (32,555) Basic and diluted earnings per share (0.20p) 0.37p 0.46p Basic and diluted earnings per share excluding (0.18p) 0.39p 0.49p amortisation of goodwill Consolidated Balance Sheet Unaudited Unaudited Audited 30/6/04 30/6/03 31/12/03 FIXED ASSETS £ £ £ Goodwill 139,577 181,201 154,612 Tangible assets 462,722 603,099 536,708 602,299 784,300 691,320 CURRENT ASSETS Stocks and work in progress 1,263,408 1,025,153 956,240 Debtors 1,555,222 1,701,323 1,417,753 Cash at bank and in hand 2,846,555 3,059,813 3,263,408 5,665,185 5,786,289 5,637,401 CREDITORS amounts falling due within one year 1,500,647 1,219,009 1,205,288 NET CURRENT ASSETS 4,164,538 4,567,280 4,432,113 TOTAL ASSETS LESS CURRENT LIABILITIES 4,766,837 5,351,580 5,123,433 Provision for liabilities and charges 20,494 52,918 33,032 NET ASSETS 4,746,343 5,298,662 5,090,401 CAPITAL AND RESERVES Called up share capital 727,000 727,000 727,000 Share premium account 3,405,817 3,405,817 3,405,817 Capital redemption reserve 256,976 256,976 256,976 Profit and loss account 356,550 908,869 700,608 EQUITY SHAREHOLDERS' FUNDS 4,746,343 5,298,662 5,090,401 Notes To The Financial Statements 1 The results for the year ended 31 December 2003 are abridged from the Financial Statements for the year which contain an unqualified audit report and have been filed with the Registrar of Companies. 2 The taxation charge for the six months ended 30 June 2004 is based on the estimated effective tax rate for the full year. 3 The calculation of earnings per share for the six months to 30 June 2004 is based on the number of Ordinary Shares in issue of 72,700,012. Comparative earnings per share for the periods shown are based on the same number of Ordinary Shares in issue. In accordance with FRS 14 (Earnings per Share) the diluted earnings per share amounts are the same as the basic earnings per share. 4 Copies of this report will be sent to shareholders and are available at the Company's Registered Office. All companies and product names are trademarks of their respective organisations. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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