Chester security ISV boosts sales and revenue
Partner-focused GB Group reports encouraging half year
Identity management specialist GB Group has announced profit of £1.5m on revenue of £17.7m for the six months to 30 September, up 58 per cent on the year-ago period.
Revenue was up 44 per cent on the same six months in 2011.
Richard Law, chief executive of the Chester ISV and services provider, said in a statement that the company was growing both organically and by acquisition.
"As online and cross-border trading continues to increase, we remain confident that there is a corresponding demand for our identity management services which are designed to enable online business and make it safe and easy for consumers and businesses," Law said in the statement.
However, Tola Sargeant, analyst at TechMarketView, has pointed out that when "adjustments" are removed from the £1.5m operating profit, GB's pre-tax profits actually declined 31 per cent from the year-ago period to £501,000 -- mainly due to higher levels of amortisation.
The company's DataAuthentication division provides identity verification services and its DataSolutions arm offers identity-based marketing offerings. GB made four acquisitions in the past 18 months – three in the past six, including Nottingham criminal records bureau tmg.tv, trading as TMB CRB.
Mostly, GB's services are a single element offered as part of a specialised channel partner solution. Partners so far include other ISVs, some of which also work with other channel partners such as integrators and distributors, and specialist cloud services provider LawCloud.
TMG CRB's checking system processes 170,000 identities a year and is used by organisations that recruit individuals working with children and vulnerable adults and pre-employment checks, which it says is a growing market.
That particular acquisition allows GB Group to bundle an integrated online employment screening offering from across the group's data sets to perform ID verification, criminal record disclosures, and "entitlement to drive" checks.