14 August 2019 – interim results
The video security system group has announced its interim results covering the six month period to 30 June and these have revealed a pre-tax profit for the period for the first time since 2014. During the period revenues rose to $24.1m (2018: $22.2m) helped by the investment in the sales teams and this continues the trend of revenue growth that has been seen in the last four successive half year periods. Strong growth has been seen in both the Asia Pacific and North America regions although a disappointing performance was seen in Latin America. Pre-tax profit for the period was £345,000 (2018: loss of £1.05m) and earnings per share emerged at 6.3 cents (2018: loss of 14.3 cents). There is no interim dividend as usual. Net cash at the end of the period was $2.8m (31 December 2018: $2.0m) reflecting the return to profit. The group has recently secured a debt facility of $10m and given the strong balance sheet and the fact that the market value of the company is less than the Board’s assessment of the intrinsic value of the company it is proposing a share buyback programme. These were clearly very good results and with a better performance expected in the second half of the year the outlook for the company is promising. We rate the shares as a BUY.,