21st Century Technology plc has announced its results for the full year that ended December 31, 2015.
Financial highlights from the report included the increase of sales by 36%, from £9m to £12.2m. Gross margins also increased from 36% to 45%, and underlying profit before tax was reported as £52,000 – an improvement from 2014, which saw an underlying loss of £129,000.
The results show an underlying profit per share of 0.06p – an increase from a loss of 0.14p per share in 2014. Loss per share was reported as 5.17p (0.41p in 2014) and cash at year-end was reported as £1m – reported as partially due to the £1.1m acquisition costs of RSL Group and ‘increased working capital requirements’.
The acquisition of RSL Group was an operational highlight for the company, reportedly expanding the ‘off-the-vehicle’ capability, and bringing an increase in customer base to include local authorities and PTEs (Passenger Transport Executives), and an in-house software development team.
Russ Singleton, Chief Executive Officer, said: “We made a lot of progress in 2015 in developing 21st Century’s capabilities in stand-alone CCTV and on-board IT sub-systems integration, building towards our goal of fully connected systems; on and off vehicles in towns and cities and on the transport network’s bus and rail stations.
“The acquisition of RSL Group provided some unforeseen challenges, though with these issues now behind us we are accelerating the integration of the two businesses with RSL becoming our Passenger Systems team, complementing our existing Fleet Systems team.
“Whilst progress in the early part of 2016 has been slower than expected with a number of contracts now expected to fall into the second half, we are starting to see some new opportunities emerging that were previously unavailable to us.”
