Derivatives software house EasyScreen has posted a second quarter loss of two million pounds, more than double the previous year's figure. The UK company warned the City earlier this month to expect a below-par performance following delays in getting its new Internet product off the ground.
The loss for the six months to end September grew to £3.8 million pounds from £1.5 million a year earlier, excluding an exceptional gain of one million pounds from the 1999 figures.
"Our growth trend was affected by delays in implementing the group's Internet product, the loss of one customer in particular and slower than anticipated adoption of our Eurex product," says Chairman Philip Docker.
The company had already warned analysts that delays in setting up its Internet platform would severely dent its second-half figures. Since then, shares have fallen 119p to yesterday's close of 61p. Bloomberg reports that EasyScreen's market value has fallen 90 percent, to £27 million, since March.
Cumulative licences sold at 30 September 2000 were 266 to 56 customers. This shows a reduction of 46 licences with total customer numbers constant from the previous quarter. Of the total licence losses 41 were due to the closure of London-based futures trader International Clearing Associates which recently ceased trading owing EasyScreen £116,000 in unpaid fees.
In addition to software for derivatives trading, the group has also announced plans to develop two equities products for retail and professional trading on the London Stock Exchange SETS platform and the Tradepoint network. The latter will be developed to offer access to both SETS and Tradepoint in London together with other stock exchanges around the globe, says EasyScreen. The retail version will be centrally hosted and offer ASP-based access to the Retail Service Providers (RSPs) who make markets across Europe to retail users.