2007 results
A year marked by consolidation of the international subsidiaries
Noisy-le-Grand, 3 April 2008 – Staff&Line, a major European IT management player, has just published its consolidated financial statements for the 2007 financial year.
A YEAR AFFECTED BY CONSOLIDATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL SUBSIDIARIES
Staff&Line recorded sales of €11.9m in 2007, up 10.2% from the year before.
The strategic software publishing business contributed growth of more than 20% to €10.1m for the year. In line with its strategy, the group stepped up withdrawal from its non-strategic services business (sales of IT inventories and reconciliation were down 28%).
The operating loss for the year was €(1.57m). Staff&Line broke even at the operating level in France despite the lack of invitations to tender in 2007. At the level of the international subsidiaries, particularly in Great Britain (consolidated over 12 months for the first time), profitability was hurt by the scissors effect generated by the faster withdrawal from services and the gradual increase in sales of the EasyVista software, accompanied by fixed organisational overheads.
The financial structure is sound with equity of €6.3m at end-December 2007 and a net cash position of €1m.
OPTIMISATION PLAN
Management implemented an optimisation plan to lower charges and improve the profit margin.
In Southern Europe, Staff&Line restructured its Portuguese subsidiary by outsourcing services and stripping back the corresponding staff, i.e. almost 50% of the workforce.
In the United Kingdom, the group pooled the two sites and let the subsidiary’s former managers go.
In France. subcontracting was significantly reduced in the second half after very high levels in the first half.
The optimisation plan already began to produce results in the second half of 2007 and can be expected to generate savings of about €1m on a twelve-month basis.
OUTLOOK FOR 2008
Management confidently expects Staff&Line to return quickly to profits owing to the growing importance for European companies of upgrading to ITIL standards, steady expansion of the international subsidiaries and renewed public invitations to tender in France.
MEDIUM-TERM GROWTH STRATEGY
While keeping its historic business on track, Staff&Line developed new products and services for mid-size facilities managers and in-house facilities management units in order to create an additional source of revenue.
Available in the SaaS (Software as a Service) mode, this offer introduces a new method of pay-as-you-consume billing without upfront fee for facilities managers.
This activity will become a significant new growth path by 2009, when it can be expected to boost recurrent sales and raise profit margins.
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Next meeting:
Publication of Q1 sales on 16 April 2008 after trading hours.
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About Staff&Line:
Since its creation in 1988. the company has positioned itself as a specialist in the IT management market. The company offers a range of software packages. EasyVista. designed for organisations of all sizes and covering the whole life-cycle of IT assets: incident and problem management. change management. computing equipment and configuration management. inventory and user portals. EasyVista is certified ITIL® compatible by PinkElephant. With operations in France. the UK. Italy. Spain. Portugal and USA. Staff&Line boasts over 3.300 clients in the banking. insurance. industrial. office. public administration. IT outsourcing and advisory sectors. Staff&Line is a founding member of itSMF. Staff&Line is listed on the Paris Stock Exchange (Alternext).
