Gresham warns of continuing losses

Troubled reseller Gresham Computing issued a profit warning last week as the cost of a company-wide restructure and the poor start to the year took its toll.

Troubled reseller Gresham Computing issued a profit warning last week as the cost of a company-wide restructure and the poor start to the year took its toll.

In a statement, Gresham said its results for the six months to 30 October would show losses slightly greater than those of the previous six months. Pre-tax losses for the six months to 30 October were £1.9m after exceptionals and before goodwill - a period the company at the time said "had deteriorated with unprecedented speed".

The decline resulted in a boardroom coup, with the resignation of Gresham's chief executive, chairman, chief technical officer and two further directors. The company appointed a new management team in April, including chief executive Andrew Walton-Green.

Although Gresham said the difficult trading conditions of the second half of last year continued into the first quarter of the current year, is stated that there were early signs of much improved market conditions. Gresham said the company anticipates that it will return to month-on-month profitability by the end of the year.

Gresham claimed that as a result of a strategic review, it has a clear strategy focused on niche business areas: automated web testing, banking and finance systems, ebusiness integration, niche products and specialist recruitment.

However, sources close to Gresham said that Close Bros had resigned in April as its commercial advisers, and the company had currently not appointed a replacement.

The company added that it is looking to divest itself of a number of processes and technologies that are not core and are not being exploited fully.

First appeared in Computer Reseller News