21st Century Technology plc has announced a half year performance slightly ahead of management expectations for the six months ended June 30, 2014.
The company attributed this to stronger than anticipated demand for the company’s on-bus systems both in the UK and Sweden. In the rail division, the installation of the majority of the advanced CCTV contract announced last year contributed significantly to the results.
The company’s operational highlights during the last six months include contract extensions with two major UK bus operators.
Mark Elliott, Chairman of 21st Century Technology, said: “This has been a good half year for the business in respect of our expectations as we continue to tackle the challenges facing us and I remain cautiously optimistic.
“We await decisions on a number of innovative major system proposals to both rail and bus operators, which if successful may begin in H2 and provide the foundations for a return to growth in 2015.
“Furthermore, we are reviewing a number of acquisition opportunities to complement the organic business development and facilitate the group’s aim to move towards a ‘smart integrator’ and provider of managed systems for on-board systems to the bus and rail industry.”
Russ Singleton, Chief Executive for 21st Century Technology, added: “The business is an established platform on which to build a leading specialist service provider of CCTV and monitoring systems to the fleet and network operators in the attractive bus and rail industries. Our strategy includes a mixture of organic and, potentially, acquisitive growth based on the current platform, which involves changing the business from installing and supporting standalone systems on vehicles to a more integrated approach, with a broader range of on and off vehicle technologies and the associated back-office software to deliver a fully managed service to our customers.
“We compete by striving to offer better integrated solutions at reduced costs in our target markets, and currently, our bus and rail operations have significant market share and economies of scale. We would expect to apply this approach to related niche markets with similar characteristics and have already built a strong pipeline of potential acquisition targets.”
