RNS Number:4048B
Startup Station PLC
30 March 2001
Startup Station PLC
Interim Report for the six months ended 31 December 2000
For the six months ended 31 December 2000, the Directors report turnover of
#124,019, compared with #86,159 for the same period in 1999.
The unaudited loss amounted to #497,001, compared to a loss of #129,901 for
the same period in 1999.
In our last statement, we reported that we had employed a team of
professionals from a well-known consultancy business. The increased loss
relates largely to the acquisition costs of the team and subsequent costs to
develop this business. To date, we have done consultancy work for a leading UK
science and technology firm and an advertising company that is part of a
leading UK communications group. However, as we spent more time with our
present and prospective clients, it became apparent that the downturn in the
market has affected their ability and speed to commit to consultancy
engagements.
This meant that our revenues were unlikely to grow fast enough to cover our
overheads. Without being able to raise finance to develop this business over
the long term, we decided to cut back the costs associated with running our
business.
I am encouraged to find that our best people have remained with us on a
consultancy basis. They are part of our growing network of talented people,
which enables us to ensure that each client engagement gets our full
attention, and is allocated high calibre people in the market. It also means
that as a company we are more flexible and most importantly, more
opportunistic on where we take the Startup Station business moving forward.
Looking ahead, we continue the focus on three areas: First, we will continue
to deliver quality work to our customers. I strongly believe that the key to
succeeding in any economy is to deliver superior value to your customers.
Second, we will seek to partner with other companies to reduce our sales cycle
time to a minimum, while at the same time enhancing their own offerings to
their customers; indeed, early results in this area are showing that this may
enable us to sign up additional customers. Third, we are committed to keeping
our costs to a minimum. With low fixed costs we can expand and contract our
overhead according to customer demand.
Faced with these challenging times, BmyPC, in which we have a 10 percent
stake, decided to close down its Israeli subsidiary. I am glad to say that
BmyPC is pursuing various opportunities for taking the business forward, as it
shifts from a technology services company to a core technology provider.
DOMINION OIL USA
Our oil and gas operations continued to strengthen during the period, through
increased oil and gas prices and productivity. In our last report, we
mentioned our plan to divest these assets from our group. To prepare for this,
we plan to transfer the ownership of these assets shortly to our wholly owned
UK subsidiary company Dominion Energy Limited. Mr Henk Jelsma resigned from
the Board of Startup Station on 15 March 2001, and from this date is the
Managing Director of Dominion Energy Limited, overseeing this separation which
may lead to divestment.
Mr Marc Winer has also resigned from the Board on 15 March 2001 to pursue his
other business interests, and is available to our Group as necessary on a
consultancy basis.
Our purpose of divesting the oil and gas assets is to achieve maximum value
for our shareholders.
We would like to thank Mr Henk Jelsma and Mr Marc Winer for their contribution
to our Group to date.
Ziv Navoth
Managing Director
29 March 2001
STARTUP STATION PLC
Unaudited results for the six months
ended 31 December 2000
Six months to Six months to
31 December 31 December
2000 1999
# #
Turnover - continuing 120,250 86,159
operations
- acquisition 3,769 -
124,019 86,159
Depreciation and (59,975) (87,722)
amortisation
Other cost of sales (87,701) (50,093)
Gross loss (23,657) (51,656)
Administrative (473,999) (73,443)
expenses
Continuing (59,743) (125,099)
operations
Acquisitions (437,914) -
Total operating loss (497,657) (125,099)
Interest receivable 1,014 559
Interest payable (359) (5,361)
Loss on ordinary
activities before and (497,001) (129,901)
after taxation
Loss per share (0.65p) (0.24p)
Notes:
(1) The results do not constitute the Company's statutory accounts.
(2) The accounting policies are consistent with those applied in the preparation
of the annual statutory accounts.
(3) These results and the corresponding results for the year are unaudited.
(4) The Directors do not recommend the payment of a dividend.
(5) The calculation of loss per share has been based on the loss after taxation
for the period and the number of ordinary shares in issue during the period
of 76,671,688 (31 December 1999 - 53,748,815)
(6) Copies of this Interim Report are being sent to all shareholders and are
available from the Company's registered office at 77 South Audley Street
London W1K 1JG.