Shares digital

Infonic (IFNC:AIM) – Finals PTP: -£1.96m (-£11.66m) Divi: n/a (n/a)

Sales rose by nearly 50% last year as the information management software provider digested a number of acquisitions, established a single brand and raised £3.1 million of additional working capital in a deal priced at 5.5p. Investors should now follow a burgeoning relationship with information giant Reuters (RTR), which has embedded Infonic’s sentiment analysis software into its machine-readable news offering. Reuters’ system will read and score articles for positive or negative news, much faster than any human can, enabling electronic trading systems to act almost instantly. Reuters is selling the systems to its clients now and the first shared revenues should roll in this year. Shares in Infonic sagged 10% to 5.75p in the days following the results, leaving them in the middle of their 12-month trading range.

Shares says: Autonomy (AU.) grabs all the headlines in this area, but Infonic is a much cheaper, albeit higher-risk alternative.

by: Russ Mould