Business Jumps at Ingenta

Ingenta, the U.K.-based online research gateway, reported positive EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) for the first time in its history for the six months ended March 31. EBITDA in the period was £100,000, while revenues rose 52%, to £7.1 million ($10.4 million). Pretax loss fell to £600,000 from £5.6 million in the comparable six-month period last year, and the net loss was £4.0 million, down from £7.3 million. Chief executive Mark Rowse said the results indicate that Ingenta will report its first pretax income, excluding goodwill, for the year ended September 30, 2002.

Ingenta provides data conversion, online hosting, access control and distribution services for publishers of scientific, professional and academic periodicals, journals and reference works. Its largest operating unit, Web site development, had revenues of £3.7 million in the first half of the fiscal year. The company now creates sites for more than 200 publishers, self-publishing societies and libraries. Among the highlights in the period was an agreement with the Gale Group to create an online subscription service that will launch this summer. In the publisher services unit, which hosts online publications, revenues were £2.1 million, and Ingenta now does work for 205 companies, including nine of the world's top 10 scholarly publishers. In its pay-per-view division, which allows customers to pay for a single document, sales were £1.3 million.