4Projects turnover up a third
According to a Contract Journal article, 4Projects enjoys surge in demand for IT software, the UK-based construction collaboration technology provider 4Projects lifted its turnover by more than a third to £4.4m (up from £3.218m) in the 12 months to 31 March 2008, generating a pre-tax profit of £1.145m (up from £0.553m), representing a margin of 26%.
As with last year's results (see 4projects boosts profits), the company's profit figure is said to under-estimate the real performance by virtue of a £720,000 management charge paid to a sister company (4Projects Management Ltd) employed to minimise the group’s exposure to corporation tax. The underlying profit figure is given as £1.9m.
At the end of March, 4Projects had 44 employees (13 technical staff and 31 employed in sales, marketing and account management), and had a wage bill of £1.5m, up from the previous year's £1.1m (in March 2007, the firm had 32 staff).
The CJ piece concludes with the news that "Since the year end, there has been a change in ownership and as a result 4Projects is now a subsidiary of Riverside Acquisitions."
Analysis
4Projects' growth is ahead of the figures achieved by most other UK vendors to have reported so far this year, including Asite (see Asite finally returns to growth), Business Collaborator (Business Collaborator grows 20% in 2007) and - to a lesser extent as they are more intranet vendors - Union Square (Union Square grows 34%), suggesting that most of the UK firms in this field are doing very well, thank-you, though the growth is not all attributed to the UK market. 4Projects, for example, has just opened an office in Houston, Texas (see news release), while Asite and [my employer] BIW both have operations in Dubai and India.
Last summer, 4Projects Holdings Ltd (the parent company of 4Projects Ltd and 4Projects Management Ltd) was the subject of a management buy-out funded by August Equity, so the year's results span a period covering both pre- and post-MBO. Riverside Acquisitions Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Riverside Topco Ltd, was formed in July 2007 and both are registered at 10 Bedford Street, London WC2, the same address as August Equity, so it is presumably just a special purpose vehicle established to run its 4Projects investment.
