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TWST: Can we begin with an introduction of Torex (LSE: TOX.L)-- a brief historical sketch and then just bring us up-to-date with who you are today?

Mr. Pearman: Torex is now a business focused in two main vertical markets, Healthcare and retail. We effectively began life as an IT company in March 1996 when our Chairman Chris Moore reversed his retail IT business into Torex Hire, a small listed plc. Torex retail at that point was providing primarily electronic point of sales systems to 2 or 3 large UK retailers. The business since then has expanded through acquisitions and organic growth, initially on the retail side but with the first acquisition of the health division in January 1997 the momentum has been more on the health side such that now health represents over 75% of our business in both terms of turnover and profits and as such has become the main focus of our activities .

TWST: Can you tell us about the Health space? What are you bringing to the market on the healthcare side?

Mr. Pearman: On the healthcare side we are providing solutions right across the continuum of care. So we are providing clinical, administrative and financial applications for healthcare providers, right through from physicians or general practitioners through to hospitals.

TWST: Is that a buoyant market? Obviously one has the NHS in the UK. Is the government driving IT spend there?

Mr. Pearman: Yes the UK is a buoyant market. It has benefited from a period of significantly increased expenditure over the last 2 or 3 years, and is now looking at the prospect of substantially more money coming in as part of the Government’s overall plan to modernize the health service. So we are actually looking forward to a period over the next three years where the NHS is planning to double its spend in real terms on IT.

TWST: What does that spend end up at when you double it?

Mr. Pearman: We expect the NHS to be spending £5 billion over the next 3 years on IT, which compares to about £1.1 billion per annum at the moment.

TWST: What is the overall game plan going forward? What are some of the milestones that are on the agenda for the next couple of years?

Mr. Pearman: Looking forward over the that sort of period, we would expect to move further into Europe, both consolidating our positions in our existing geographic markets and also possibly entering one or two more geographic markets such as France, Austria or Scandinavia. As a result of which I would expect possibly up to 50% of our business coming from mainland Europe. Obviously over that time scale we would also expect to see the benefits of significant new money coming into the NHS marketplace. So we would be expecting to be in a middle of a frenetic period of activity in 2004 and 2005 when the NHS try to meet the major milestones and deadlines that were set out in the information for health strategy.

TWST: If I were to position myself as an investor, what kind of benchmarks and metrics should I use to gauge your progress?

Mr. Pearman: I think as a company it is important to understand where Torex is trying to move its business model. We are very much trying to move the business model more towards managed services to give us higher quality and visibility of earnings going forward. So for us one of the principle measures are order book, operating profit margin, operating cash flow and finally and most importantly - earnings per share growth. These are the four measures that we principally benchmark the business against internally. So those I think would be the four measures that are appropriate to judge us by externally.