Olin told PrintWeek that "very low volumes" of the firms stock were being traded, and defended the decision to sell much of its stock to company insiders and current investors.

"The insiders were very familiar with the company," he said. "They had invested in various previous rounds and believed in the future of the company. They could more readily understand what we are trying to accomplish. It might have been tougher for some of the non-investors to understand."
Olin was speaking to PrintWeek last week, several days before the firm released its results for the second quarter of 2002.

Printcafe made a pro forma net loss of 1.15m ($1.8m) in the second quarter, compared to 3.2m a year earlier, but its revenues were up 10% to 7.8m. Taking into account an 8.96m net loss attributable to common stock and 700,000 of extraordinary expenses, its net loss hit 8.3m, a 47% improvement on 2001.

After the firm released its results its share price fell 4.8% to 2.29, just over a third of its IPO issue price.

"One of the primary benefits of the IPO is that we are able to restructure a significant amount of debt," Olin had earlier said.

And he also thought that Printcafe would be in a better position to make net profits after it finishes paying amortisation on its acquisitions in 2000 of Logic, Hagen Open Systems, Programmed Solutions and M Data. This is scheduled to end in the first quarter of 2003.

He said the firms R&D investment was constant and that it would continue to develop new software.

Printcafes IPO went ahead in June, over two years after it announced its initial flotation plans.

But the stocks performance has been hit by the scandals affecting corporate America, including those at WorldCom and Enron.

Story by Gordon Carson