On-Line

Just before Christmas, the technology business builder On-Line (which spun both ADVFN and Akaei onto Aim) unveiled some pretty woeful preliminary numbers to June. Though revenues were lifted by 58% to £2.32m, EBITDA losses still stretched to £549,000 (£835,000), and the group made a pre-tax loss of almost £2.4m (£3.3m) after a heavy program of write-downs. The financial website ADVFN, in which it is a major shareholder, managed to boost sales by 106% to £1.64m, but it still lost £355,000 (£1.3m loss) at the EBITDA level. On-line and ADVFN chairman Michael Hodges says the next step is for ADVFN to take a bigger share of the US market. Akaei failed to live up to expectations and On-Line wrote down its investment in the games developer/publisher to zero. This included writing-off the significant R&D costs involved in developing Akaei and the internet advertising arm 'Advertwizard'. Hodges insists 'we are now in a much stronger position than we were 12 months ago and have cut costs and are reorganising and refocusing'. The market disagrees and the shares, issued at 100p back in 1996, look decidedly bombed out. This intricate network of loss making companies is not attractive. Avoid On-line. Avoid ADVFN. Avoid Akaei.

Sector: Software & Computer Services

Companies: On-Line

Market cap: £0.7m

PE Forecast: n/a

Share price: 11p

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