City File: Micro Focus

THERE MUST be days when Paul O'Grady tires of saying he heads a software company called Micro Focus. Micro what? Don't you mean Microsoft? But Mr O'Grady gets the next laugh. Micro Focus, founded in 1976, a year after you know who, has doubled its turnover to pounds 68m and tripled profits to pounds 23m in the past four years. True, it's much smaller than its rival, whose profits at the nine-month mark were a hefty dollars 688m ( pounds 453m), on a turnover of dollars 2.71bn, but the stock has proved just as waterproof in recession. Worth more than a chuckle, in fact.