Patsystems, a UK-based supplier of software for futures and options trading, has reduced losses for the year ending December 2002 by 40% to £9.2 million by growing revenues and cutting costs.
Revenues increased by 56% to £7.8 million (2001: £5.0m), the number of chargeable end users for the year increased by 67% to 5527 (2001: 3313) and the number of lots traded through Patsystems increased by 56% to 117 million (2001: 75 million).
Eighty-seven per cent of core revenues were recurring. The group also won 11 new contracts and reduced total operating costs by £3.8m. A recent move to AIM and fourth quarter headcount reductions are expected to keep costs under control going forward.
Kevin Ashby, chief executive, comments: "Recurring revenue is continuing to increase while at the same time costs have been substantially reduced."
He says the company remains on target to reach monthly operating profitability by the end of 2003.
At the end of 2002 patsystems also started the build of a new product platform dubbed Enterprise, which will be delivered in three modules. Module 1 is due for commercial installation during the fourth quarter of 2003, and the other two modules are scheduled to be delivered in the months following this.
The platform will be able to handle much larger end-user and transaction volumes, says Ashby, and pave the way for a move into new asset classes. Much of the work is being outsourced to a specialist software company, in a low- cost overseas location.