Professional services firm Morse today reported a 13 per cent group profit fall and said its continued drive away from the IT infrastructure market had put a dent in its financial figures.

Revenue from continuing operations was down £40m to £256.5m for the year-on-year period ended 30 June 2007.

The infrastructure arm of the business saw a revenue drop of 31 per cent.

Morse CEO, Kevin Alcock, said: “This reflects our strategy to focus on higher margin, services-led client engagements and withdraw from pure product fulfillment business.

“Whilst we were expecting a decline in revenues as a result of this shift, the drop off in revenue has been sharper than anticipated.”

The Middlesex and Brentford-based firm, which earlier this year demerged from mobile banking provider Monitise to allow Morse to focus on the professional services segment of the business, said pre-tax profit from continuing operations (excluding one-off items) was £12.5m - up 14 per cent on last year’s results.

But Morse shareholders saw basic earnings per share including discontinued operations tumble from 2.6 pence last year to a less attractive 1.0 pence figure for 2007. The firm said it intends to raise its final dividend for the year by 3.8 per cent to 4.05 pence per share.

Morse shares are currently trading at 95.75 pence on the London Stock Exchange, down a quarter of one per cent on the previous close.

The full Morse press release is here. ®