Directors at SciSys, the specialist IT firm with an office in Bristol, have insisted its recovery is now well established and last year’s problems are behind it.
In a trading update to the London Stock Exchange this week, they said they were encouraged by the group’s performance in the second half of 2015 and its underlying results this year will comfortably meet current market guidance.
The Chippenham-based firm, which develops complex IT projects in sectors such as space, defence and media, suffered a series of setbacks in 2015. 
These included problems with a major fixed-price development project for an unnamed client, which pushed the firm into a £1.1m half-year loss on revenues down by 22%.
And millions of pounds were wiped off SciSys’ stock market value on one day when it issued a profits warning over the contract and warned that it was at risk of breaching its banking covenants.
But a series of new contract wins in the final quarter last year alongside a “mutually satisfactory conclusion” to the problematic contract had put the firm back on course for growth, it said.
“Despite the continuing headwinds created by adverse foreign exchange movements, the group’s trading performance for the second half of the year indicates that the board’s previously-expressed confidence, that problems encountered in the first half were a temporary anomaly, was well founded,” it said in the statement.
SciSys said the contract wins had contributed to a healthy opening order book for 2016 and this was further supported by an encouraging pipeline of potential new business prospects.
As a result, the directors remained confident that current market guidance for 2016 would be achieved. While it expected results to be impacted by the euro’s weakness, it had hedged to mitigate the risk, it said.
Chairman Mike Love, pictured, said: “After a challenging first half of 2015 it is pleasing to confirm a recovery in the second half and the establishment of a solid platform for returning to the levels of profit and margin expectations in 2016 and beyond that investors have experienced in the recent past and can reasonably expect going forward.”
SciSys, whose clients include the European Space Agency, the BBC, Airbus and the Ministry of Defence, employs nearly 450 staff across its offices in Brislington, Chippenham, Leicester and Reading and two in Germany.
