New CEO plans makeover at ARC

The company also revealed it is planning a makeover, details of which are expected to be announced in August, togther with its interims.

"The financial outlook for the first half is very disappointing, demonstrating the need for action," said Geoff Bristow, ARC's newly-appointed CEO.

The group said it is expecting to generate sales for the first half of between £6 million to £8 million compared with £9.3 million during the same period last year.

“These are tough times but I am confident that we can emerge as a stronger, more efficient business in the future. I look forward to updating the market with the action plan at the time of our interim results," Bristow added.

ARC said the licensing business was healthy and it had cash balances of £9.8 million at 30th April 2009.

Bristow added that recent strategic investment in R&D facilities in India and Russia had begun to deliver the anticipated returns, with the release of the new ARC Sound 211SFX and two new Sound-to-Silicon solutions, ahead of plan. These will be launched at Computex in Taiwan on 2nd June.

Last September, the company announced plans to reorganize its operations. A key element in the plan was to move some product development to engineering centers in Russia and India.

Bristow took over from Carl Schlachte earlier this month. Schlachte was instrumental in pushing ARC as a major provider of "sound-to-silicon" solutions for a number of chip companies, following the acquisition of Sonic Focus.

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