System C goes for market listing

IT implementation solutions specialist, System C, which has been heavily involved in the National Programme for IT (NPfIT), plans to float on the Alternative Investments Market (AIM) on 28 June.

The company has seen a steep rise in turnover from £5.6m in 2003-4 to an estimated £18m in 2004-5 as its staff have worked to kit out the NHS in three regions with new patient administrations systems, GP systems, Map of Medicine clinical solutions and single assessment process solutions.

Director of sales and strategy and a founding director, Markus Bolton, gave a down-to-earth account of the company’s happy position: “We are a very hands-on company. We go out there and make things happen. What we have to do is make more things happen."

It’s a modest explanation for the success. System C was an IT systems and service provider before the national programme. The company had completed six successful implementations of its electronic patient record systems around England and had geared up to do more.

Further work was halted when the NPfIT came along and System C refocused itself as a service provider implementing systems developed by former rival, iSOFT.

“We had to change,” said Bolton. “We took on over 100 extra people and trained them and made that investment in them. We had to make a decision to support the national programme rather than hope it was going to go away at some point. It is going to happen and I think people just need to realign themselves really.”

Despite the fact that services always accounted for a larger part of System C’s revenues than software, the change was significant. “iSOFT used to be our biggest competitor. Now we are implementing their systems. It is a big psychological change for the organisation but you’ve got to be prepared to change,” says Bolton.

He says his fundamental philosophy of “getting computers working properly in the health service” has not changed, but he anticipates that the listing on AIM will raise the company’s profile and, of course, enable System C to raise money for further investment.

There is a lot more work to do in the North-east, East and North-west and West Midlands regions where System C is working for local service providers, CSC and Accenture. The company also has client-side work in NHS trusts around the country.

System C’s shares start with a placing price of 54p giving it an approximate market capitalisation of £47.7m. Existing shareholders have agreed to sell 32,281,471 existing ordinary shares with the largest single shareholder, Barclay Ventures, selling its entire stake.