Briefs: Aveva expects strong results in 1H08; New CEO for Screen Technology; PACSMail in football injuries trial
AVEVA Group plc, provider of engineering data and design IT systems, said in a trading update for its half year to 30 September that financial results are expected to show strong growth over the same prior year period.
The Cambridge HQed Group said it continues to experience strong demand in each of its main end user markets of oil and gas, power and marine. Geographically Asia Pacific and Central Eastern and Southern Europe remain particularly strong with good customer wins across all its main markets.
The stock market greeted the news by marking AVEVA's share price up 7.47% in a generally gloomy market. The Group is now valued at almost £550m.
With a less pronounced split of profits expected between the first and second halves of the financial year, the performance to date and current sales prospects give the Board confidence that the Group is on track to achieve results for the current year towards the top end of current analyst forecasts, the company said in a statement.
CEO Richard Longdon said: "Prospects for the second half remain strong. To date there is no indication that the global financial turbulence has affected demand for our products but we continue to keep a careful watch on developments in our market place."
The Company will be announce 1H08 interim results on 11 November.
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Screen Technology said Tom Jarman has stepped down as CEO and has been succeeded by Chris Hanson, the company's CFO.
Mr Jarman will remain with the Group until early 2009 to smooth the transition.
He has been a director of Screen Technology for almost seven years and CEO since 2006. The company said he wishes to spend more time with his family in Gloucestershire and that he and the Board agreed it is the right time for new leadership to take the business forward.
Mr Hanson (50) has been CFO since June 2007. He was previously Finance Director and then COO at Cardpoint plc. He has extensive experience as a Finance Director with a number of other public companies including Parkland Group plc and JWE Telecom plc. He qualified as an accountant in 1982 and spent 13 years with KPMG.
The Board also announced two new appointments to the Board of Screen Technology Limited, the Company's main trading subsidiary. Campbell Cromar has been appointed as MD and Paul Bayley as Sales Director.
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PACSMail said it is being used by UEFA in a multi-national study on the diagnosis and management of hamstring injuries.
The trial is being led by Professor Jan Ekstrand, VP of the UEFA Medical Committee, who is based at Linköpings Universitet in Sweden.
European Champions League clubs who are taking part in the study use PACSMail to send scans on-line to Dr Ekstrand's offices in Sweden and these are then reported by the study's UK team of radiologists using an electronic pro-forma that has been built into PACSMail specifically for this study. A central database then allows monitoring of trial results.
Dr Ekstrand said: PACSMail had "radically improved the speed of data collection and provides us with the ability to get rapid results from the diagnostic experts who are supporting this trial from the UK."
