Spescom is entering a new cycle in its history, a phase that will see it consider all opportunities for growth, including acquisitions, it says.
"The group intends to take a forceful lead in core business areas of the ICT sector, says CEO Tony Farah.
He says Spescom will continue to focus on content management and is actively strengthening the application side of its technology offerings. "The main emphasis will be on telecommunications and voice," he adds.
"Internationally Spescom remains focused on the globalisation of its own products and technology."
The group surprised the market yesterday by reporting headline earnings of 36.1c for the year to September. While this was down substantially on the 63.5c of the previous year, the market had been expecting worse, given the 17.4c per share headline loss at the half-year point.
The Spescom share closed 2c up at 104c on the JSE yesterday. It was untraded this morning.
However, after taking into account the non-trading items and the decision to write off all offshore loans owing to the group, Spescom incurred a loss of R3.45 million for the year (2004: R29.4 million profit), which translates into a basic loss of 4.8c a share (49.4c earnings).
CFO Jene Palmer says the group restructured its shareholding in the US operation, Spescom Software, which facilitated external financing for the US company.
Palmer says the operating results for the second half were vastly better than those of the first half.
Revenue for the full year was 37.3% down at R223.47 million (R356.52 million), while the group incurred an operating loss of R17.09 million (R41.73 million profit).
Palmer says there were several causes for the lower revenue, including equity accounting instead of consolidating the US operation, delays in liberalisation of the telecoms sector in SA and the discontinuation of the group's non-core Test & Measurement division.
Also playing a role was the conclusion of major international contracts with British Telecom and subsequent delays in the awarding of replacement business.
Says Farah: "The telecommunications industry continues to be characterised by delays and uncertainties." However, he expects the landscape to change significantly over the next year.
"The ongoing momentum of this transformation is expected to be realised in the 2007 financial year," he adds.
He says the contact centre business continues to grow with the world trend towards offshoring. This offers "great potential as India's grip on this market lessens, providing opportunity for SA".
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