After raising annual pre-tax profits 11.7 per cent to £900,000, resource exploration data specialist GETECH is optimistic about current projects.

The Leeds-based company, which provides studies and data interpretation services to the oil and mining exploration sectors, increased turnover 15.9 per cent to £4.13 million in the year to July, helped by a £900,000 second order for its aeromagnetic data on the Russian Arctic Shelf. Chief executive officer Raymond Wolfson says reaction to AIM-quoted GETECH’s latest (and largest) study, on the South Atlantic, has been favourable and points out that four more studies, ranging from East Africa to East China, are coming out in the first half of the present financial year.

Last year, the company lifted earnings 19.2 per cent to 2.17p a share and increased its cash 80 per cent to £1.7 million. A proposed final dividend of 0.7p a share would take the full year payout to 1.3p, against 1.2p last time.

Chairman Peter Stephens says GETECH won several new proprietary geophysics projects in the second half of the financial year and highlights additional Russian marketing agreements for gravity and magnetic data within the Former Soviet Union. IP Group, the university-linked specialist in commercialising intellectual property, increased its stake in the company to 20 per cent and now has a representative, Charles Tavner, on the board.

GETECH remains on the look-out for ‘appropriate acquisitions’, conscious that the ‘lumpy’ nature of its sales denies it a degree of ‘forward visibility’. The shares, which fell from 56p to 16p between 2006 and earlier this month, have now bounced to 29p, valuing the company at £8 million, and could fare better than many over the medium to long term.

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GETECH Group	AIM	£6.58m	22.50p	0.00p
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