The new board of JSE-listed Cyberhost is looking at changing the group`s name in a bid to shed the last vestiges of its negative past.
MD Mark Weetman says the company has now been stabilised, and for the first time has achieved a small profit.
The new board was appointed in March after a change of control at the company, resulting from the acquisition of Ex-teq Realtime Systems.
"Cyberhost had been on an acquisition trail, and ended up with six or seven ISPs (Internet service providers). They were never integrated, so they had incorrect client details, duplications and so on.
"In January the company closed shop and really ceased to exist. We came in March and reopened it."
Weetman says only 10% of the ISP clients were paying for services.
The board made cuts where it deemed them appropriate, including getting rid of clients it believed it did not need.
"Our main focus has been to reorganise the company to do what we do well."
The company is now a systems integration partner of I-Net Bridge and has an employee benefits workflow deal with Momentum Life.
Cyberhost now focuses on value-added IT services, and it says its key strengths lie in the financial services, employee benefits and e-commerce areas.
Weetman says the ISP portfolios have been cleaned up and will be sold.
He adds that the company is still the subject of negative perception, not only in the investment market, but across the board.
"If you were a Cyberhost client, your experience with Cyberhost was bad service. There`s a legacy attached to the name, and so we are looking at changing the name.
"This is the third time there has been a change of board and focus, so the market is saying 'what`s new?`." He says one major change is that the new board is made up of businessmen, not technical people.
Weetman says the interim results were the last negative part of the company over which the new board had no control. But he is confident that the news will be better from now on.
"We are warranted from 1 January onwards," he says.
"If I had a target for the next six months, it would be to recoup the last six months` losses so at least at the end of the year we could post a profit, which, given the last two years, would be quite an achievement."
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