Craneware shows U.S. Growth

Growth Company Investor is reporting very good news from Scottish software company Craneware, whose products help US hospitals optimise billing.

After doubling interim profits to £820,000 pre-tax the company, whose £5.4 million AIM floatation last September was judged IPO of the Year at Growth Company Investor’s recent Quoted Company Awards, increased turnover 24 per cent to £4.35 million in the six months to December. Craneware also announced an increase in its US hospital client list by 96 to 878 on the strength of its flagship product, Chargemaster Toolkit.

HQ is in West Lothian and there are offices in Florida, Arizona and Kansas.

Colt Telecom Reports Profitability

Ever since reading the famous ‘Hacker Tourism’ guide by Neal Stephenson titled Mother Earth Mother Board the business of fibre optics, cable laying and data transportation have been fascinating to City Chap.

In the 1990s Colt Telecom Group plc was one of the first companies to start digging up our roads and installing fibre optic cable to compete with BT in the business telecoms market.

Interesting news then that when Colt plc announced its first ever full financial year profits last week – after a wait of 15 years mind – the main driver of growth in the company was also reported to be from its data offerings (+9.8% growth in turnover) whilst revenues from voice calls continued to decline (-19%). So less telecoms, per se, and more ‘Net Coms’.

Pre-Tax Profit = £29.6 miillion – 12 months to December 31st 2007
Turnover = £130 million
No dividend was announced.

Whizz Kid Wants Controlling Stake In Precious Media

Venture capitalist Ingenious Media Active Capital (IMAC) has invested a further £2 million in TV production company Whizz Kid Entertainment, a company it has a 50% stake in. This follows the initial investment of £2.25 million in June 2006, when the company was launched by CEO Malcolm Gerrie.

The money is earmarked for the acquisition of a controlling stake in Precious Media, a ‘content exploitation’ specialist which aims to increase profits for content rights holders through strategies such as distribution through multiple outlets and securing sponsorship. Precious is interesting because it was one of the first companies to properly tackle the new distribution paradigm for multimedia content – where digital download and viewing on demand from multiple platforms is (or soon will be) king. The company develops formats and programmes for a full range of digital platforms, from mobile and VOD to IPTV and Pay-per-View and distributes them to broadcasters

IMAC, invests primarily in unquoted media and entertainment companies. Its parent company, Ingenious Media, both advises and invests in the media sector through various subsidiaries. Whizz Kid produces programmes in genres including television, entertainment, factual entertainment, events and music. The company has produced events including the Orange British Academy Film Awards, the BAFTA TV Awards, and Elton John’s 60th birthday concert.

Synchronica hunting for more cash and more markets

Bombed-out AIM company Synchronica (AIM: SYNC) has raised £2 million – only one month after saying it had ‘sufficient cash to meet its present needs’. Cough, cough. Its 2007 report showed losses halved at £3 million and it had previously reported raising £1.87 million at 6.25p in a prior issue.

The mobile communications specialist latest shares placement was at 7p through broker Seymour Pierce – cash which is earmarked to expand its sales and marketing operations in emerging markets that lack elaborate existing communications networks. Markets where attaching email capability to simple mobile phones could be big business. Operative word here is ‘could’.

Founder and chief executive officer Carsten Brinkschulte argues Synchronica’s Mobile Gateway 3.5 ‘push’ email and synchronisation software is ‘geared to the specific requirements of emerging markets and can deliver email to more than three billion phones worldwide’.

Brinkschulte contributed £20,000 to the latest placing. He has been trying to steer Synchronica back to health since it lost its way within ill-starred mobile services venture DAT Group.

August 2007 saw some positive news when Synchronica won a potentially lucrative contract with Sun Microsystems whilst more recently the company agreed an international marketing JV with Miami-based Brightstar, a leading distributor to mobile systems.

Originally floated at 130p back in 2004, the shares had topped out at 530p before collapsing all the way to 6.88p by June 2007. Mid-market today they were trading at 7.5p.  

Recommendation: Very Speculative

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