Senior Tomato Technologies manager resigns

GM and company secretary of Queensland investment software provider Tomato Technologies, Ian Prowse, has resigned.

Former financial controller Ivan Bekefi took over the company secretary role on Friday 23 January. Prowse is believed to have left for personal reasons but would stay on as a director, Bekefi said.

Russell West, chief financial controller at Tomato Technologies, said Prowse had taken another job and had a 'good history' at the ASX-listed software vendor.

West said Tomato Technologies was doing as well as could be expected under current market conditions.

'Our product is starting to take off. In both the Australian and UK it has done extremely well,' he said. 'We've got a licensing agreement now in Canada and will be looking at supplying to other countries.'

Plans to roll out in the US are being considered, according to a December investor presentation by the company.

Tomato Technologies had concentrated on a 'back to basics' approach in the last 12 months but was gearing up for growth in 2004, he said.

The $40 million company's flagship Star Trader personal investor software had been on the market for about two years, West said.

'More and more people seem to be wanting to diversify their asset portfolio,' he said. 'More people are looking at our software. My personal view is that in Australia, people don't see superannuation as the be-all and end-all - they try to manage their own assets.'

Tomato Technologies - which claims its core revenue since 2000 has increased some 300 percent to about $20 million a year - has a total 100 staff in its two Brisbane and London, UK, offices.

Revenue from its stock data distribution business has also increased, with the number of subscribers to its onlinestockdata.com service up 25 percent to 5,236 in the first quarter of the 2003-04 financial year.