A listed Salford-headquartered software firm has named a new chief executive while revealing a £21m pre-tax loss for its latest financial year.
K3 Business Technology, which provides business software, cloud solutions and managed services, has appointed Marco Vergani with immediate effect.
He succeeds Adalsteinn Valdimarsson who left his role at the start of March after the disposal of its managed services unit Starcom Technologies to private equity-backed Node4 for almost £15m.
Mr Vergani has worked in senior executive sales roles at IBM for 26 years, latterly as vice-president of EMEA sales for global process services.
More recently he was chief operating officer at Qubit, a global leader in e-commerce personalisation, serving global luxury, cosmetics and fashion brands.
Before Qubit, he was global senior vice-president, sales and account management at Digital River, the provider of SaaS-based e-commerce, payments and marketing solutions globally.
In a separate announcement to the London Stock Exchange, the company confirmed it fell to a £20.9m pre-tax loss in the year to November 30, 2020, compared to a loss of £700,000 in the prior year.
Its revenue also dipped from £50.1m to £48.8m while its adjusted EBITDA went from £7.1m to £4m.
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K3 Business Technology has confirmed that its own IP revenue totalled £16.1m for the year, down from £17.9m, with gross profits also going from £12.6m to £12.2m as the Covid-19 pandemic impacted retail solution sales.
Revenue from global accounts increased however from £15.7m to £17.3m while gross profits for that division surged by 20.5% from £6.2m to £7.4m "reflecting the on-going expansion of the IKEA franchise network".
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Third party product revenue fell from £16.4m to £15.4m while gross profits went from £10m to £9m and the loss-making 海角视频 Dynamics business was placed into administration in April 2020.
In a statement, the company added that its trading in the new financial year so far is in line with the prior year.
It also confirmed that it agreed an extension to its £3.5m revolving credit facility with Barclays on March 26 to the same month in 2022.
Chairman Tom Crawford said: "In the face of unprecedented challenges created by the coronavirus pandemic, I am pleased with the resilience K3 has demonstrated.
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"Our high level of predictable and recurring revenues, as well as our large and diverse customer base, led to robust results at a trading level.
"Implementing our strategy to focus on own IP and global accounts and to cease investing in legacy POS products, we took a number of important strategic decisions in line with our growth strategy.
"These included placing the loss-making 海角视频 Dynamics unit into administration, raising additional funding and, in late February 2021, selling Starcom, our managed services unit, for £14.7m.
"The group is now in a significantly stronger financial position and is better placed to drive our own-IP strategy.
"Following Starcom's sale, Adalsteinn Valdimarsson stepped down as chief executive officer, and I am pleased to welcome Marco Vergani as his successor.
"He brings significant sector experience and a strong record of driving sales.
"Marco will be leading a re-evaluation of our target markets for K3|imagine, which continues to offer exciting growth potential.
"We have a strong product offering and look forward to a return to more normal trading conditions as the coronavirus vaccine programme continues and lockdown restrictions are eased."
Mr Vergani added: "I am delighted to be joining K3. The company has developed a number of market-leading software solutions, and I believe there is a significant opportunity to sharpen its existing strategy to grow own-IP sales, and in particular the K3|imagine solution.
"My background in commercial sales and the retail and direct-to-consumer sectors is directly relevant, and I look forward to working with colleagues, clients, and strategic partners to continue to innovate and drive long-term, high-quality, subscription-based earnings."