Optimisa Looks to Delist after £4.5m Loss

Market research group Optimisa has reported a loss of £4.5m (2007: £5.5m) for 2008. The firm is also asking shareholders to vote on de-listing the company from the AIM stock exchange, to save the £100k associated admin costs.

For the year, adjusted profit before tax fell 13% to £1.2m and adjusted earnings per share declined to 9.73 pence. Executive Chairman Ron Littleboy says this is largely due to the disappointing performance of the eq companies acquired in 2007.

The group experienced an 'unprecedented drop' in revenue of more than 20% across the group in the first quarter of 2009, with the operations in Asia and the US hit particularly badly.

Consequently Optimsa has sold KAE Asia, which was launched in Shanghai and Singapore in February 2008, and headed by former Synovate Asia-Pac MD Damien Duhamel. It is also in discussions to sell its US strategic market analysis firm nxtMOVE, which it says will prevent any further 'cash drain'. Following the US sale, all the group's operations will be based in the UK.

Midway through 2008, the firm introduced cost-cutting measures which included a reduction in headcount from 209 to 187. Since this time, the firm has seen pre-tax profits tumble and reduced headcount by more than 20% at its UK-based research companies - Quaestor, Buckingham Research and Andrew Irving Associates.

Some functions previously provided centrally have devolved down to the operating units, with only Finance and IT now carried out at the head office. The group has also eliminated the role of COO, and the Chairman and CEO roles are to be merged.

'Against this bleak economic background, the Board felt it necessary to implement sweeping changes in the structure of the group and its costs, in order to ensure it has a sound base from which to benefit from any recovery in demand in 2010,' Littleboy explained. 'These measures are intended to support a return to profitability in the second half of 2009.'

To reduce head office costs, the Board has also recommended that shareholders approve the delisting of the firm's shares from AIM, which will save a further £100k pa. The vote will take place at the group's AGM, to be held in London on Friday 17 July 2009.

Web site: www.optimisaplc.com .