According to a London Stock Exchange announcement this morning, CodaSciSys, the parent company of Business Collaborator is proposing to demerge. The company’s CODA and Business Collaborator divisions, together with other related trading entities, will become part of a separate group under a holding company, CODA plc, which will be separately listed on AIM. If all goes to plan, the move should be completed later this summer.
Hopefully, this move will make it easier for us to keep track of BC’s financial performance. Since its acquisition by CodaSciSys in 2003, BC’s figures have been combined with the SciSys commercial unit, so the full health (or otherwise) of the collaboration business has been difficult to ascertain.
Various Stock Exchange announcements and trading updates have also underlined BC’s successful involvement in the Suppliers Ethical Data Exchange (SEDEX) programme. This apparently (p.8 of the latest CodaSciSys annual report, year ending 31 December 2005) contributed "to a considerable turnaround in the fortunes of the Division, reporting profits (before goodwill amortisation) of £0.3m against a loss of £0.4m last year (operating profit £nil (2004: loss £1.8m))." It is unclear just how great a contribution comes from the SEDEX initiative, but it is almost ignored in BC’s 2005 operational review (pp.18-19), which mainly focuses on the AEC sector (with case studies on Primark and Thames Water).
The annual report shows the combined division turned over £2.9 million last year (£2.489m in 2004), returning a pre-tax profit of £0.23m (2004: loss of £1.617m).
