KUALA LUMPUR: DATAPREP HOLDINGS BHD [] shares advanced in early trade on Monday, Sept 20 after its subsidiary secured a RM34.99 million contract from Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd (SPNB) and a positive outlook that it would return to the black in the financial year ending March, 31, 2011.

At 9.05am, it was up three sen to 34.5 sen with 1.7 million shares done.

The FBM KLCI rose 4.41 points to 1,471.38. Turnover was 34.76 million shares valued at RM26 million. There were 126 gainers, 39 losers and 91 stocks unchanged.

Last Friday, Dataprep said its 55% subsidiary Solsis (M) Sdn Bhd received the letter of award contract from SPNB to implement a cashless bus ticketing system for Rapid KL Buses.

Bernama had also quoted Dataprep chief executive officer Cheam Tat Inn as saying he was optimistic the company, which posted pre-tax losses for two consecutive years, would return to the black in the financial year ending March, 31, 2011.

Cheam said his optimism was underpinned by the company's diversification into more segments in the IT business and secured many high-margin projects.

"Dataprep expects a revenue growth of between 35% and 45% in the current financial year," he said after the AGM.

Its pre-tax loss for FY ended March 31, 2010 rose to RM5.683 million from RM5.456 million in FY2009.  For FY2008, it suffered a pre-tax loss of RM3.202 million.

Revenue fell by 18 per cent to RM44.595 million for FY2010 from RM54.164 million in FY2009.

Cheam said Dataprep has seen in upward trend in revenue for the past three quarters, growing by 10% to 12% and based on the performance, it would return to the pre-crisis level or even higher.