Microgen Holdings Plc, Radlett, Hertfordshire, has finished the year to October 31 with pre-tax profits up 19% at UKP9m on sales that rose 5% to UKP47m. Says chairman Patrick Barbour, the disposal of the peripheral businesses – Imagen and Microgen Equipment & Supplies – has increased the quality of the company’s earnings and enabled Microgen to concentrate on developing its core business of supplying information management systems. The acquisition of the computer output microfilm businesses of Microscribe and Hoskyns towards the end of the financial year haven’t impacted the 1990 figures, but Barbour expects the two new businesses to contribute UKP3m to next year’s turnover. Microgen this year introduced its invoice management system in the UK and Germany, where full sales teams are now in place. The company has great hopes for this system and intends to extend it to Scandinavia later in the current year. Microgen now exclusively covers Scandinavia with a further Anacomp distibutorship now in place in Finland. The community charge service – where Microgen processes all the paperwork and generally makes life easier for those given the pleasant job of calling in unpaid poll tax bills – has been through its first cycle. Please Mr Heseltine, says Microgen’s Douglas Lee, don’t abolish the poll tax. The company’s net cash situation has improved by UKP1.6m over the year, leaving net borrowings of UKP33,000. The chairman is confident of a bright future, with regular repeat income pulling the company through the recession in the UK and Scandinavia, and he looks forward to a strong input from the new acquisitions. Further acquisitions in computer output services are also in the pipeline – Microgen says it wants to complement Scandinavian and German businesses by expanding into France and Holland.
