Shares in Oxford Metrics (OMG) were marked down on release of its half-year results to March 2019. Ostensibly, this mirrored a dip in the group’s pre-tax profits, after higher sales and marketing, research and development and administrative costs. Further down the profit-and-loss account, statutory EPS benefited from much lower tax charges.
There were encouraging signs of growth within the larger business, Vicon, which specialises in high-precision motion measurement analysis. Here, sales rose by 13.6 per cent to £12.5m, while pre-tax profits edged up by a tenth to £2.2m. Among its established markets, Vicon’s engineering division offered a particularly positive performance. There was also progress within Vicon’s so-called ‘adjacent’ markets, which currently constitute location-based virtual reality and elite sports.
Yotta, Oxford Metrics’ smaller business, provides cloud-based asset management software to government agencies and other infrastructure owners. Here, revenues increased by 6.1 per cent to £3.5m. The group said Yotta’s overall growth was “muted” by a lower retention rate, at 93.2 per cent versus 95.3 per cent – something brought on by the (anticipated) cancellation of an unused software element by one customer, who still uses other Yotta software. Pre-tax losses for the division increased from £0.8m to £1m.
House broker N+1 Singer expects adjusted pre-tax profits of £6m and EPS of 3.7p for the September 2019 year-end, up from £5.2m and 3.5p in FY2018.
| OXFORD METRICS (OMG) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 88p | MARKET VALUE: | £110m | |
| TOUCH: | 87-89p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 99p | LOW: 61p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 1.7% | PE RATIO: | 25 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 22p* | NET CASH: | £10.9m | |
| Half-year to 31 Mar | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
| 2018 | 14.3 | 1.18 | 0.60 | nil |
| 2019 | 16.1 | 1.17 | 0.89 | nil |
| % change | +13 | -2 | +48 | - |
| Ex-div: | na | |||
| Payment: | na | |||
| *Includes intangible assets of £12.4m, or 10p a share | ||||
