Tangent's Green shrugs off 50% drop in profits

03 June 2009

Business

Tangent communications chief executive Nicholas Green has said he is "optimistic" despite company profits dropping by more than 50% in the year ending 28 February 2009.

Revenue for the year came in at £15.61m, down from £17.36m in 2008, with profits standing at £1.08m – a drop from £2.44m. Net cash at the end of the period came in at £2.65m.

Sales in Tangent's digital print operation Ravensworth were down 37% on the previous year, with the business exposed to the slump in the UK housing market.

However, in April, the company acquired the software and goodwill of failed printer VLM, which allows Tangent to trade under the Digital Print Partnership (DPP) brand – a trade digital print service.

According to Green, the VLM license agreement will help Tangent "offset some of the reduction in sales from the property sector and offer greater upside when the market rebounds".

Another acquisition in that time was that of digital marketing agency Lateral, which became part of Tangent One, in a bid to give the company "greater weight in the key area of web strategy".

Green said: "2008/09 was a challenging year for Tangent, but the restructuring we completed puts the business in a better position to take advantage of the current climate.

"Going forward, business will be difficult and there are uncertainties in the current economic climate, but at the same time, I'm pretty optimistic."

In the past 12 months, the company has restructured into five divisions, including Tangent Labs, Tangent One and Tangent Direct.

Tangent currently employs 175 people, after reducing its headcount by 10% in the past 12 months. It has a client base that includes Borders Books, Citroën, Gala Coral Group and Halifax.

Piers Caldecote, non-executive chairman at Tangent, said: "I am confident that Tangent is in a good position to move ahead in the next two years, with strong recovery from the weakness of the second half of last year."