Sydney - Friday - October 29: (RWE Australian Business News) -...

Sydney - Friday - October 29: (RWE Australian Business News) -
IWL Ltd today said it had followed up its record 2004 year result with
another strong performance in the first quarter of the current year.
First-quarter earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and
amortisation rose 32 per cent to $3.63 million, or an annualised 5c per
share (fully diluted), on revenues of $13.01 million, up 15 per cent.
Chief executive Mr Otto Buttula today said, "when we released
the 2004 full-year result in August, we foreshadowed earnings growth for
FY'05 in the region of 15 per cent.
"Today, we are pleased to report that we have comfortably
exceeded our initial expectations, with the first quarter of the new
financial year being stronger than anticipated.
"The result comes on the back of continued robust ASX market
conditions, a successful and faster-than-anticipated rollout of VisiPlan
to the National Group and a positive earnings contribution from the
recently acquired ACS Group.
"While it remains too early to accurately determine whether we
should lift our full-year earnings expectations, we are pleased with the
strong start to the year and look forward to building sustainable,
above-average relative performance."
Subsequent to the quarter's end, IWL's Broking Solutions
division has been selected by National Australia Bank as the preferred
vendor to negotiate on terms and conditions to provide online broking
solutions to National OnLine Trading, further extending the contract
beyond October 2005.
Also, IWL points out it has been ranked as a Top 500 company in
the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific awards for the third year
in a row.
IWL shares rose 1c to 37c yesterday and have risen 4c this week.