Corporate regulation, crisis boosts Automony

Autonomy, the Cambridge-based search software company, said it had had a "momentous" year as tighter corporate regulation helped it post record results for 2008, the Financial Times reports.

Its software that searches "unstructured information" including documents, email, phone conversations and multimedia, propelled by changes in corporate governance.

In particular, changes to the US Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which has changed how companies must be able to account for electronically stored information has played into Autonomy's hands.

Revenues for the year to December 31 rose 47% to $503 million while pre-tax profit doubled to $185 million. Cash balances at the end of the year rose from $92.6 million to $199 million.

Gross margins in the fourth quarter rose to 89% compared with 83% a year ago.

Shares in Autonomy have risen 26% over the past year to reach £10.33, the FT concludes.