"We have enough runway", Blur Group finance chief says

In an interview at Digital Look’s offices, on 17 August, new finance director Tim Allen struck a positive note on the restructuring put in place at the digital marketplace.

“We understand where we are, [we have] great predictability,” he told us.

A succession of missteps between 2013 and early-2014 had seen this previous high-flying stock brought low, but it was now busy refocusing its efforts on larger (and more profitable) corporate clients and cost-cutting and Allen believed his firm, “still had runway”.

“We have control”, he told Digital Look.

Blur had also shifted towards a ‘cost-to-access’ model for its marketplace, which allowed clients to engage with up to approximately 3,000 active suppliers, with branded content providers and web/app designers a particular strongpoint.

Allen was named finance chief on 16 December 2015, close on the heels of David Sheriff’s appointment as the company’s non-executive chairman on 30 September of that same year.

Critically, on 11 August AIM-listed Blur notified the market that at the half-year stage its rate of ‘cash-burn’ had been reduced by 58% when compared to the year-ago period.

Management’s efforts were now centred on getting its pilot-phase clients, numbering “less than 20”, over the proverbial finishing line.

Three of those larger corporates were now near the end of their initial phase and two or three such contracts would suffice to transform the firm’s outlook, Allen believed.

Ironically, the recent slowing in the economy post the referendum vote might prove to be a tailwind for his company, as corporates looked to cut costs via digital procurement.

Allen referenced third-party industry research to back up his claim, pointing out how a typical firm could aim to slash its costs by between 20% to 30% using services such as those provided by Blur.

The company was due to hold a Capital Markets Day at the group’s offices in the fourth quarter of 2016.