Citywire
by Jemma George
"Epic, the online learning specialist, has seen a dramatic bounce
in fortunes and with news of a maiden interim dividend and £10 million
of cash in the bank there is good reason to revisit the story.
For the six months to 30 November Epic recorded a 400% jump in pre-tax
profit to £1 million from £200,000, from sales of £4.6 million.
Earnings per share rose but a similar amount to 3.7p from 0.8p and
the group is paying its first half-year dividend of 0.4p per share.
Cash balances of £10.4 million compared to £7.4 million this time
last year. Epic has continued to broaden its client base...
The result is a better mix of public and private sector clients,
as well as business that spans both products and increasingly services.
Clients include financial institutions such as Barclays and Royal
Bank of Scotland, education and health bodies such as National Health
Service University and government sectors including various departments,
the Cabinet Office and the Inland Revenue.
The public sector accounts for 50% of all
trade and saw growth in revenues of 30%. Revenues from the private
sector showed reasonable recovery and were up 20% but financial
businesses are still watching their budgets which means tapping-away
at newer sectors such as media, accountancy, retail, travel and
telecommunications.
The group is very well financed with just over £10 million of cash
in the bank, which brings both credibility and strength for the
pursuit of acquisitions, although management have found nothing
suitable to date. Share buybacks are another possibility.
Epic is one of few businesses to offer specialist integrated learning
solutions designed to keep the student or employee as close to and
involve with the day-to-day running of a business as possible.
Effectively, this means taking the training package to the employee
rather than the employee to the training package, and more over,
providing a product and service that is suitable for the business
concerned...
For the full year to May 2003, Epic is expected to make a pre-tax
profit of £1.32 million and earnings per share of 4.4p, rising to
5.04p the year after. The healthy cash balance will support a dividend
of 1.18p this year rising to 1.24p next year."
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