Leading UK movie effects developer announces record results

15 June 2006, Oxford: Oxford Metrics Group plc (OMG), the leading developer of image understanding, motion capture and visual effects technology for the engineering, life sciences, defence, games and movie industries, has announced record interim results for the six months ended 31 March 2006.

OMG’s technology has been used in the production of many of the leading box office movies with recent examples being X-Men: The Last Stand and The Da Vinci Code, as well as by major games producers such as Ubisoft, Square Enix, Eurocom Entertainment and Electronic Arts.

For the six months ended 31 March 2006, OMG recorded:

Record turnover, up 71% to £8.2m (H1 2005: £4.8m)
Record operating profits of £1.1m (H1 2005: £0.6m loss)
Earnings per share up significantly to 1.63p (H1 2005: loss per share of 0.96p)
Strong cash generation with cash balances at 31 March 2006 up 20% to £5.3m
The Group’s two long standing businesses, 2d3 and Vicon, are to be joined by a third business division – Geospatial Vision, established to focus on street-level geospatial imagery. 2d3 is also pursuing exciting new market opportunities in the defence sector.

OMG reported a record performance in the second half of last year, which has continued into the current year.

During 2005 the Oxford-based OMG group saw one of its companies, Vicon, win an Academy Award – a “Technical Oscar” – and technology from another of its companies, 2d3, was used in the making of four of the seven films nominated for the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, including the winner, Lord of the Rings.

Nick Bolton, OMG Chief Executive, said: “Since becoming Chief Executive of OMG in May 2005, I have implemented a number of initiatives focused on keeping costs down, leveraging our existing technology, and ensuring consistency of sales execution.

“The combination of strong leadership, excellent technology, and the desire to deliver on our promises, means we are achieving these aims and, as a result, the business is performing strongly and is demonstrating significant trading improvements.

“This excellent first half performance represents a record in the Group’s history and the strong performance of our core business is underpinning our drive for growth in significant complementary markets.”

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