Losses narrow for listed printing group
Manchester printing and software company, Grafenia, is set to ‘double down’ on the software and systems part of its business after deciding to sell its manufacturing arm.
The new focus comes as the listed company revealed its financial results for the year to the end of March 2022, which saw the group’s pre-tax losses narrow.
In the last fiscal year, turnover increased by 27% to £12.3m. Of this, £8.9m related to continuing operations and £3.4m related to discontinued operations.
Gross profit increased by 20% to £6.7m with £3.5m coming from continuing operations and £3.1 from discontinued operations.
However, the overall gross profit margin decreased to 54.2% as physical product volumes returned, which provide a lower margin than its licence and subscription revenue streams.
Grafenia’s loss for the year reduced to £1.84m versus last year’s £2.09m.
Shortly before publishing this report, Grafenia announced it was selling its manufacturing business and that it will concentrate on parts of the business ‘it is good at.’
It will be putting its emphasis on the group’s Nettl Systems and will be exploring acquisitions of complementary software businesses.
Chairman Jan-Hendrik Mohr said: “In many ways, software is the nervous system of many businesses.
“During Covid, we saw an incredible stability and resilience in our software and licence revenues. Nettl Systems (and any good software, really) is the last thing people turn off during times of crisis.
“And rightly so! Software makes businesses more efficient and allows people to spend their time on more creative and interesting tasks.
“Grafenia sells a special kind of software which is tied into an entire ecosystem of how to run and operate a design business: Nettl.
“Importantly, during Covid Nettl not only served as a smart solution to help design studio owners work more efficiently – it was a source of inspiration and stability for many small entrepreneurs to make it through trying times.”
