Baltimore cuts its losses

Embattled security vendor reduces year-on-year loss by over £600m

Security vendor Baltimore has battled through a tough few years and reduced its year-on-year loss by over £600m.

Posting its unaudited preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2002, the firm posted a £64.7m loss for the year, compared with £657.8m for the year ended 31 December 2001.

Turnover for the year, including discontinued operations was £35m, compared with £70.4m the previous year. But operating losses were just £7.7m, compared with a much higher £663.8m in 2001.

Bijan Khezri, chief executive of Baltimore, said: "We have revitalised and strengthened our core business, invested in new product categories and reinforced partnerships.

"Today our challenge is to grow revenues rather than to drive profitability through cost reduction."

According to Judith Jordan, analyst at Ovum Holway, Baltimore worked hard to get spiralling costs under control.

"But we are still not convinced that it has learnt lessons of its past, by concentrating on growing revenues rather than cost reduction. It has cut costs so much that we wonder if it can really compete on a global scale," she said.

"In the medium term we think the focus should be on managing costs; in the longer term Baltimore will probably find itself under new ownership."