JBA Holdings Plc, the Birmingham, UK-based enterprise resource planning software house and IBM Corp AS/400 reseller, issued a profit warning this week which saw its shares take a dive of 612 pence to close at 645 pence on Wednesday. Although the price has since recovered to 807 pence, investors are still out of pocket, and the huge tumble has had a negative effect on other big UK information technology stocks. JBA has long been viewed as an unglamorous but robust software house serving its chosen vertical markets of food and drink, automotive components and footwear, extremely well. Only a few months ago, chairman Alan Vickery was talking confidently about a US listing in the near term to try and raise the group’s profile alongside its more glitzy ERP peer group. But pre-tax profits for the year to December 1997 are now likely to fall to 5m pounds, well below expectations of around 15m pounds. Revenue is expected to rise by 36% but JBA blamed higher than expected development costs for the profit shortfall. Similar one-time costs would also run on into 1998, the company said.
