Publishing Technology plummets as company warns on full year

19th Jun 2014 08:14

Publishing software group Publishing Technology has said that results this year will be flat on 2013 and "below market expectations", causing shares to plummet on Thursday.Furthermore, the company also said that results for the first half ending June 30th will likely show a loss due to actions taken to rectify "implementation problems" on some contracts. These resulted in additional product development expenses of £0.4m and the deferral of £0.6m of revenue that was previously expected to be recognised in the period.Michael Cairns, who was appointed as Chief Executive in March, was tasked with conducting a strategic review to identify areas to improve the group's performance.While his review has not yet been concluded, he identified "certain design problems" in the engineering of some software. These "are leading to inefficient implementations and performance issues which need to be rectified and that the company's implementation resources are not scalable enough to meet growing demand from contracted and pipeline business".The company has decided to add additional resource to fix these problems. "These decisions will improve the longer-term outlook for the business at the expense of the current year," the group said.Cairn has also called on Publishing Technology to build a range of internationally recognised implementation partners to bolster it sales and geographic reach. Initial discussions are underway, the company said.The stock was down 35% at 180p by 08:23.BC