Shares in the AIM-listed print management group took a knock last week when it announced that financial reporting errors would force it to restate its 2004 earnings to 3.5m from 4.5m, and that earnings for this year would be around half the revised 2004 figure.

Following that announcement and the subsequent publication of its interim results last Friday (30 September), its shares slumped to around 3.5p. The year high is 23p.

Cromack said Friday's price slump was down to one fund manager who "dropped all his shares in one go".
"How do we recover [the share price]? We hit our number. It will make life a lot easier," said Cromack.

He added that the group had the support of its largest shareholder, Morleys, which had just taken a further 5m shares. "They are fully supportive of the growth story," said Cromack.

"We are still profitable, we are still generating cash and we have the support of our shareholders and the support of the bank. What we have to do now is go on and hit our numbers," he said.

In the six months to 30 June 2005, the group posted revenues of 30.07m (2004: 24.03m) and earnings before interest, tax and amortisation (EBITA) of 690,000 (2004: 2.27m). Gross profit was up by more than 4m at 10.1m (2004: 6.03m).

Cromack said that 40% of the group's revenue was contracted and that 10m of new annualised contracted revenue had been signed and implemented in the past 12 months.

"Why did we buy Access Plus [the print manager acquired in 2003]? To give us the scale and infrastructure to go out and win print management contracts and that's what we did last year," said Cromack.

TripleArc's interims (2004)
Revenues 30.07m (24.03m)
Gross profit 10.1m (6.03m)
EBITA 0.69m (2.27m)