Guardian iT bails out of web-hosting

UK company ends a year of suffering in the wrong place at the wrong time...

By Joey Gardiner, 3 September 2001 11:27

NEWS UK business continuity group Guardian iT has announced it is quitting the web-hosting market just a year after entering it. It blamed the turnaround on rapidly worsening economic conditions and massive over-capacity in the web-hosting field. In a statement released to the stock exchange this morning Richard Raworth, chairman of Guardian iT, said universally held high expectations for growth in demand for web-hosting had not been fulfilled. Guardian will take a £8m one-off hit for the change in strategy, but said it thinks it can save £3m a year by getting out now. Raworth added that the past six months had been the most challenging in the firm's history. Guardian iT made the announcement at the same time as reporting half-year results in line with revised expectations. It made a profit before tax and goodwill write-offs of £5.2m, up 23 per cent on the equivalent quarter last year. Its turnover rose 75 per cent to £58.

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