Security risk management concern Red24 might contemplate a year-end dividend after turning last year’s £328,000 interim loss into a first-half pre-tax profit of £198,000.

The Berkshire-based company, which distributes its advisory services through the HSBC banking group and troubled US insurer AIG, increased turnover 13 per cent to £1.6m in the six months to September. Red24, which cut annual losses from £700,000 two years ago to £263,000 in the year to last March, ended the first half of its current year with £380,000 cash, an increase of nearly 70 per cent.

Steered by chairman and key shareholder Simon Richards and director Maldwyn Worsley-Tonks, AIM-quoted Red24 has cut out costs from an ill-fated Japanese foray and launched a new service, ‘Travel Tracker’, enabling companies to locate employees travelling abroad. The company, whose consulting arm won three new insurance underwriting clients in Lloyd’s and North America, has been making ‘steady if unspectacular progress’ in overseas markets, including the USA and Korea, says Richards.

He concedes that capital markets turmoil has had ‘a dramatic effect’ on AIG, but suggests Red24 will be able to establish direct relationships with the relevant AIG subsidiaries ‘if their ownership becomes fragmented’. Richards says the company hopes to confront the urgent issue of loan stock repayment due next March either with funds from the exercise of warrants — if the shares perform — or by rescheduling.

If the courts allow the elimination of Red24’s deferred shares, the company could pay a final dividend this year. Floated nine years ago at 1.25p, Red24’s shares reached 10.5p in 2006 before falling all the way to 1.37p last month. Now 3.25p, they value the company at a mere £1m.

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