The trading update from Intelligent Environments contained a sting in the tail. The good news is that 2007 revenues rose 40 per cent, operating profits were in line with market expectations and there is now net cash of £1 million in the bank. But recruitment of permanent and temporary staff to deal with the number of new customers moving onto IE’s consumer finance software platforms meant a big rise in costs. That should slow in 2008 as more recurring revenues come through from the 16 firms (Barclaycard and the Royal Bank of Scotland among them) now on a system that charges per transaction processed.

The shares have slipped back from the 10.88p at which I tipped them in April last year to 8.63p now. But IE is starting to turn potential into reality. Hopefully, performance will not be far behind.

Intelligent Environments	AIM	£12.76m	7.75p	0.00p
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Other company articles:
In the Hot Seat			28/04/2008
Intelligent suffers one-off costs			18/01/2008
Intelligent wins big European bank client			16/11/2007
Pick of AIM by James Crux			09/08/2007
Fund Manager Focus by Pauline McCallion			02/07/2007