Coms sales soar after 'radically' refocusing on Redstone

Last year was a 'transformational period', firm says in trading update

Coms returned to profit in 2015 after "radically refocusing" its efforts on Redstone and disposing of its non-core assets, it said in a trading update this morning.

For the 12 months ending 31 January 2016, Coms' EBITDA from continued operations reached £1.3m, compared with a loss of £0.7m the year before. Over the same period, revenues from continued operations shot up 36 per cent to £40.1m.

"This was a transformational period for Coms, which saw the company radically refocus its efforts in order to capitalise on the strong market position of our core Redstone operations which facilitate greater engagement between buildings and commercial spaces and the people who use them," said Coms CEO Mark Braund.

Coms ended the year with £1m net cash and throughout the year disposed of its loss-making Telephony Services division for £2.5m and its Darkside Studios media division "for a nominal consideration".

After its year end in March this year, Coms acquired smart buildings software business Connect IB for £1.3m and raised £3.1m in new equity "to support the acquisition... and provide working capital to further develop the application software business".

"We have made a strong start to 2016, underpinned by our outstanding team at Redstone, and are seeing opportunities from combining and leveraging the Redstone and Connect IB brands across the existing customer base and with potential new clients," added Braund.

"The market opportunity for smart technology for buildings and commercial spaces continues to grow at pace, giving us tremendous confidence in the group's future trading prospects."