Scisys full-year revenues drop as euro weakens but profits rise 67%

LONDON (ShareCast) - Scisys (LSE: SSY.L - news) , the computer software and services company, said it improved profits during 2014 but revenues were lower than expected due to a strong sterling and concerns around public funding. Revenues declined 5.3% to £40.3m, but profits before tax rose 67% to £3m. As a result, earnings per share jumped to 7.7p from 4.6p the year before.

The strong pound against the euro hurt its media and broadcast, and space divisions. The media and broadcast division was also affected by fewer contract wins, but still managed to deliver better-than-expected results with revenues of £8.1m, the same as the year before.

However, the space division saw revenues fall 6% to £18.6m because of euro weakness.

Chairman Mike Love: "Whilst we face headwinds during the current year in the form of the continued strength of sterling and some concerns around public funding as we approach a General Election in the UK, we believe the continued margin improvement and the group's cash performance to be indicative of a strong underlying business." FinnCap analysts said: "CISYS demonstrated an ability to withstand difficult trading conditions to deliver its seventh consecutive year of improved margins." The broker noted that the group showed resilience despite forex headwinds, difficult markets and slow ED contracts.

"The outlook for H1 is cautious over forex and pre-election public spending but brighter for H2 with contract renewals helping. Given this caution, we are easing our FY 2015 forecasts, although we expect the progressive dividend policy to continue," it added.

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in Scisys were down 12.19% to 82.1p on Thursday at 10:07.