Results lift for Tracsis shares

The Leeds-based group, which designs and licenses software to help train operators cut costs and speed up scheduling of staff and rolling stock, said it continued to perform ahead of expectations in the second half of its year to July 31.

Shares in Tracsis gained 4.5p to close at 60p, valuing the company at £14.4m.

AIM-listed Tracsis recently paid up to £3.4m for MPEC Technology, its fourth acquisition in four years, adding remote trackside data-logging technology to the company’s portfolio of “smart planning” products.

Tracsis said including more than £1m of sales from MPEC, “the enlarged group is expected to deliver full year revenues and profits that are significantly ahead of the current expectations”.

Analysts at house brokers WH Ireland had expected Tracsis to report pre-tax annual profits of £907,000 on sales of £3.4m.

Tracsis added expectations for the year to the end of July 2012 are unchanged. WH Ireland sees Tracsis’s sales hitting £5.6m in 2012, with £1.4m pre-tax profits.

Tracsis was spun out of the University of Leeds’ School of Computing in 2004. It is gearing up for more acquisitions and expansion abroad. The company has cash of around £3.5m to invest in technology which improves efficiency on the railways, and recently raised £1.95m through a share placing.

Tracsis is also preparing for a surge of work around rail franchises, as the Government invites companies to bid for the right to operate train routes.