The Irish financial software firm Norkom Group has reported a robust rise in profits for its financial year to the end of March.
The company said it grew its pre-tax profits to €7.45m from the €4.9m pre-tax profits reported during its previous financial year.
Revenues rose 3pc to €49.3m during the year. The company pointed to the continued strong revenue growth of 14pc to €9m recorded in Asia Pacific and a 15pc rise in revenues to €9.3m in its Ireland, UK & Rest of the World (ROW) division during the year. The latter growth came mainly from the Middle East, Norkom said, where it acquired five new clients during 2010.
According to Norkom, revenue growth came from both incremental contracts, with more than 90pc of existing clients re-investing in Norkom’s solutions, and also from new contracts, with 16 new name clients secured in 2010. Norkom said its total client base now numbers 119, which includes seven of the Top 10 global banks.
The company pointed to rise in demand for increased regulation as a key factor in driving its business forward. “New geographies have put in place legislation to regulate their financial institutions, while more developed regulatory regimes in the US and Europe deepened their regulatory oversight,” it said. Norkom cited the fact that new regulations were released in Poland in 2009, and said the same is expected during the 2010 calendar year in New Zealand, Ukraine, Japan and China.
Norkom CEO Paul Kerley said he believed the company had navigated through the bottom of the crisis in its core banking market.
“(The year) 2010 has been another solid year of performance. Even in the midst of significant upheaval in our core markets, the strength of our business model and market standing, together with the demand drivers in our market allowed Norkom to deliver a strong performance for the period.
“While continuing to deliver growth with profits, careful management of costs and focused investments gave us the opportunity to enter new geographies, release new products and create additional infrastructure, all of which position the group well to take advantage of any upswing in demand in the coming periods.
“We have ended the period as a stronger company in terms of the quality of our market position, expansion of our product lines and the financial strength of our earnings and balance sheet. During this period, we do believe that we have navigated through the bottom of the crisis in our core market,” Kerley added.
Article courtesy of Businessandleadership.com
