OMG discontinues its Life business

Oxford Metrics (OMG), an AIM-listed technology group providing products and services for the life sciences, entertainment, engineering and government markets, has decided to discontinue OMG Life and instead focus on its other two businesses Vicon and Yotto.

OMG Life has been focused on deriving value from the company’s portfolio of Intellectual property (IP) through the deployment of third-party consumer products.

The group expects to report revenues in excess of £29m, up from £25.8m in 2015, ahead of market expectations. Adjusted profit before tax in line with expectations excluding the write-off of £1.5m capitalised R&D relating to the decision to discontinue OMG Life.

The group has successfully transferred its IP relating to machine learning-based imagery classification to a new independently funded vehicle called Pimloc in exchange for a 25% in the the new company.

The firm’s motion capture technology business, Vicon has performed well in all geographical areas, according to the firm. It has benefitted from the strengthening of the dollar versus the pound, with an average of 50% of its revenues generated by its US operation.

Yotta, the firm’s infrastructure asset management business, has continued to benefit from a recurring software revenue stream in the UK and abroad. The business has secured clients in the UK at Plymouth, Gateshead and London Borough of Havering, in the Netherlands at SAAone and with the recently announced extended relationship with Amey Plc to deploy Horizons at customer sites in UK, Australia, New Zealand and Spain.

The group’s cash balance for the year closed at £8.2m, a fall from the previous period at £11.7m, after the payment of £5.3m worth of special and final dividends during the year.

The firm plans to announce its preliminary results for the financial year of 6 December 2016.

The share price rose 0.77% to 47.11p at 1006 BST on Wednesday.