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TWST: Let’s start with a quick introduction to Epic Group (London: EPI.L) and an update since we last spoke.

Mr. Clark: We are an e-learning company and our primary market is the U.K., although we are starting to do some stuff globally, on leadership in particular. The e-learning concept is quite simple; rather than delivering stuff in the classroom, we deliver it straight to the desktop. Our position in the U.K. market is one of market dominance in the bespoke side; in other words, the work for hire business in e-learning, although one change in the business model this year has been into the products area. We are on AIM in the London Stock Exchange and the stock price has doubled this year. So it is bucking the trends in the market and has done reasonably well. Our half-year results, which were to November of last year, have come out and they were strong. We had the highest ever 6 months revenues, highest ever profits of £1 million, after tax, and highest ever cash reserves at £10.4 million. So, all the key fundamentals of the company have been very, very strong this year.

TWST: What’s going on generally in the e-learning space and what are the favorable characteristics you are seeing?

Mr. Clark: I think the e-learning space is really riding on the back of the virtuous bit of the Internet. I mean, it was thought that the Internet was an e-commerce medium, but that's turned out not to be quite true. E-commerce is merely a small slice of the overall pie. It was quite clear that the Internet then became this huge knowledge base with Google on the front. That is what made it so powerful and that’s why China feared Google. It's become a global knowledge base, the biggest learning resource in the planet. Now, that is what is still driving our market – the notion that you can save money by having this huge knowledge base at your fingertips. And that's true in education, in corporate, in government, in health, and so on. The same argument applies, i.e. you can save money and still deliver very effective content and facilities to the desktop. We’re really now the second wave of the e-learning market. The first wave, which is absolutely typical in any of these young embryonic markets, was a bit over-hyped. But then people started to use the stuff. They saw what was good, what was bad, and the second wave therefore is far more considered and rational. Now we have a lot more intelligent buying in the marketplace. I think that works to the strength of the companies who really know what they are doing. We have found that all the fundamentals of the business are getting better this year. We have a good position in the market, we have been around for a while, we have a good customer base, and they have come back and are working with us year after year.

TWST: What’s the attitude like to online higher education in the UK?

Mr. Clark: That is actually quite big news here. The university system is still almost medieval in its values and the change here is that there have been several initiatives this year all led from the top. There is a new education secretary, Charles Clarke, who has shaken things up a little. The big initiative here is the UK eUniversities, which is attempting to sell British degrees abroad using online learning. We have been heavily involved in that project. It is a good project and will go places. The old universities themselves are far more aware of e-learning then they ever have been in the past. This happened a couple of years ago in the US; it is now happening in the U.K. Another big initiative is an organization called the Interactive University, which has been funded by Scottish Enterprise in Scotland, and they already have considerable revenues abroad. On the back of the SARS crisis, for example, they have delivered the product called Scholar into Hong Kong, which means all the kids can continue studying at home. So there are several really interesting and exciting things happening in higher education and we are active in that area. We do some work in schools, but we concentrate in tertiary education – further, higher and lifelong learning.