News

Printed products firm 4imprint says first half sales will be ahead of last year as things improved in the second quarter, with a "substantial" improvement in prospecting yields.

Printing group Communisis said both trading and progress with its strategy have continued well and it expects to report operating profit after restructuring costs for the six months to 30 June to be in line with market expectations.

Defence technical services group Cohort said profit after interest and before tax was rose to £5.6m in the year ended 30 April compared with £2.7m last time as revenue increased by 66% to £57.1m.

Management software provider Craneware is to provide two of its software packages to Catholic Healthcare West, which runs hospitals for the poor and disadvantaged in California, Arizona and Nevada.Revenues from the deal will show up in Craneware's results from the next fiscal year, it said.

Residential property company Mountview Estates has increased dividend by 3% to 155p per share despite a fall in profits for the year. Pre-tax profit slumped 41.2% o £29.5m on revenue that fell 20% to £54.3m.

IT business solutions firm Prologic reported a 19% rise in full-year pre-tax profits and said it is positive about the long-term prospects for the business.Pre-tax profit rose to £1.7m in the year ended 31 March from £1.4m on revenue up 10% to £11.6m.

Gas explorer Gasol's losses more than doubled last year, but the company remains upbeat saying the year ahead is promising with good progress expected in its various projects in Nigeria and Equitorial Guinea. Losses for the year to February were £2.7m against £1.1m. Cash at the year end totalled £1.45m.

Online search marketing group Infoserve trimmed losses slightly to £2.89m from £3.2m in the year to March. Sales rose to £4.65m from £3.76m. "The new contract with Yahoo! gave the business a new impetus during the year and the recently signed contract with Google puts the Group in, what we believe to be, a unique position to exploit the ever growing local search market," chairman James Newman said.

Online gaming group Webis says both its sportsbook, betinternet.com and our pari-mutuel operation, European Wagering Services, have seen an improved trading performance for the year to May as a whole. "I anticipate that this growth will continue into the new financial year as we allocate more funding to marketing the increased offering of both the pari-mutuel and sportsbook operations," chief executive Gary Knowles said.