RWS sees strong demand for patent services

11th Oct 2013 07:16

Intellectual property (IP) firm RWS Holdings saw its top line grow by over a tenth in the year to September 30th, while profits have come in ahead of current market forecasts.The company, which provides IP supports services such as patent translations, searches and filing, said that revenues on a constant currency basis grew 10.4% to £76m during the year, in line with expectations.It said this reflects the organic growth in the core patent translations business, as well as a full year's transfer of patent translations generated from the inovia network - the company completed the acquisition of inovia last month, paying $23.3m for the two-thirds that it did not already own.RWS also said it delivered a strong performance overseas as well as its commercial translation divisions, while subscription revenues from its PatBase searchable patent database tool rose 11%."As a result of increased margins and before several IFRS accounting adjustments, it is now anticipated that the group will achieve adjusted profit before tax of £20.9m, which would be ahead of current market expectations," the company said.Chairman Andrew Brode said he was "delighted" that RWS has made "further significant progress" across the business in 2013.. "We have a good pipeline of new client wins and prospects, and can look forward to the benefits of the full consolidation of our acquisitions. These developments leave the group well positioned to make further positive progress as we enter a new financial year."The stock was up 0.35% at 767.42p in early trading on Friday.BC