Suretrack’s £1m market move

02/07/2010 Robert Tyerman

Asset tracking specialist Suretrack Monitoring is contemplating moving from the PLUS-quoted market to AIM after a funding handled by Merchant John East Securities. The acquisitive Kenilworth-based company, steered by managing director Will Hirons, a veteran of ill-starred railway maintenance specialist Jarvis, has been on the expansion trail and nearly doubled turnover to £671,500 in the year to January.

Helping this growth was the takeover of another sector player, IBP, which supplies banks, police forces, supermarkets and chemists in the UK and mainland Europe with products aimed at safeguarding cash in transit and protecting client companies’ staff and customers from violent crime.

However, Suretrack says costs mostly associated with the IBP deal, including an £868,162 goodwill impairment charge and a £1.1 million leap in administrative expenses to £1.5 million, meant that it showed a 250 per cent pre-tax loss surge to £1.2 million.

The company says a downturn in the plant hire market did not help, either. Chairman Nigel Linacre says Suretrack has now refocused its business by targeting ‘high-volume corporate clients’, and last month clinched a £1 million deal to supply its MT2 tracking device to Ford Motors’ UK dealers.

Down from a year’s high of 1.875p, Suretack’s shares are now 0.80p, more than twice their 0.35p 12-month low. AIM investors will need signs that the focus is working through to the bottom line before they are likely to consider piling in.