| Interim Results |
| Wednesday, 19 November 2008 01:00 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
FFastFill (LSE: FFA), the leading provider of Software as a Service (“SaaS”) solutions to the global derivatives community is pleased to announce interim results for the six months ended 30 September 2008, showing strong progress during a period of continued investment: Financial Highlights • Revenue increased by 45% to stand at £6.83m (H1 07/08: £4.72m) • SaaS revenues increased 20% organically to £4.02m • ‘12 month Order Book' stands at £12.33m (H1 07/08: £10.50m), with SaaS Order Book increasing 32% to £8.95m (H1 07/08: £6.77m) • EBITDA of £0.24m (H1 07/08: £0.49m) • Operating Loss of £0.42m (H1 07/08: Loss of £0.08m) • Cash balance of £1.37m (H1 07/08: £1.88m) • Placing of 15,384,615 shares, announced today, raising £1.0m to fund phase 2 of our Asia Pacific expansion plan following good progress with phase 1
Operational Highlights • Significant contract wins in the period including wins with ICAP, Mizuho and NYSE LIFFE • Acquisition of Exchange Technology Pty Ltd providing our initial base in Asia Pacific, regional middle office connectivity and 12 significant customers in the region • Service suite enhanced and expanded, covering Front, Middle, Back and Risk capability • Now operating on a true global basis – as one Company, one identity, a consistent level of service delivery Commenting on the results Keith Todd, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of FFastFill said: “I am very pleased with the significant growth we have achieved during the first six months of this year in a difficult market. With our investment in Asia Pacific we now go to market with a truly global, 24/7 offering. The enhancements we have made to our service suite are being well received by both new and existing clients. It is particularly exciting to be pushing forward with our expansion in the key Asia Pacific region and I am delighted to announce our successful £1.0m Placing today alongside these results which will fund that expansion. “As we have previously said, no business can be immune to the current exceptional market conditions. The Board recognises that there is more uncertainty in the market at the current time and unforeseen events could occur in the months ahead. Whilst turbulent markets present opportunities for leaner, more agile and fast moving businesses like ours the timing of these opportunities is difficult to predict. However, as a result of the investments we continue to make in our business, we have confidence that our medium and long term growth prospects remain sound.”
For further information please contact: FFastFill plc +44 (0)20 7665 8900 Keith Todd, Chairman and CEO Nigel Hartnell, Executive Director Financial Dynamics +44 (0)20 7831 3113 James Melville-Ross / Matt Dixon / Emma Appleton KBC Peel Hunt +44 (0)20 7418 8900 Oliver Scott / Richard Kauffer Chairman and Chief Executive Officer's Statement Introduction I am pleased to announce another period of significant growth over the past six months, achieved in what is now widely recognised as a demanding and turbulent marketplace. During the first half we have continued to invest in our growth potential, enhancing our range of offerings as well as further expanding our geographic footprint and increasing our capacity to support future growth. These actions have now firmly established FFastFill as a key player in the trading technology market and we enter the second half of the year with the most competitively strong service suite in our Company's history. I am also extremely pleased to announce today the commencement of phase 2 of our Asia Pacific expansion plan following the successful Placing of 15,384,615 shares raising £1.0m to finance this expansion. Further details on the Placing can be found in a separate announcement made this morning. We, like everyone, have been impacted by the turbulence in the financial markets over the past six months. However we have demonstrated resilience during the period, something that speaks both to the strength of our offering and of our business model. We are well equipped to mitigate the effects of this continuing turbulence as a result of the recurring nature of the revenue we earn from our core business, the breadth of our customer base and the competitive strength of our offering. As evidence of this, we have continued to grow our work within existing clients as well as win new clients during the six months under review. In particular we have announced four new wins during the past few weeks that will contribute to growth in the second half of the year. The nature of these wins says a great deal about the opportunities within our own marketplace at the moment. In September we announced new contracts to provide ICAP and Mizuho with connectivity to the London Metals Exchange (“LME”). Their moves into the LME market space is one example of the vitality of our core derivatives market at the moment, with new names entering the arena as well as existing names driving and capitalising on the higher volumes resulting from current market volatility. Similarly, in October we announced an agreement to provide independent trading house, Mint Equities, with a number of FFastFill applications including a trade execution and risk management capability. We are seeing increasing interest in risk management systems and our recently enhanced risk management product, ‘Risk Pro,' is well placed to capitalise on this trend. Financial Review Total revenue during the period grew 45% to £6.83m (H1 07/08: £4.72m) within which SaaS revenue grew organically by 20% to £4.02m. Revenue from SaaS related work accounts for 70% of total revenue, similar to last year, thus underpinning the already high quality of our recurring revenue base (this excludes third party licence fees passing through our revenue). Our ‘12 month Order Book' now stands at £12.33m (H1 07/08: £10.50m), with our SaaS Order Book increasing 32% to £8.95m (H1 07/08: £6.77m). During the period we received less customer funded development work than expected resulting in a negative short term effect on the profit and loss. Instead of carrying out work of this type, our development resource was deployed to bring forward some Company investments in intellectual property that will assist in growing our recurring revenue stream further still over time. Our top 20 customers continue to account for 81% of total revenue (H1 07/08: 81%), with the revenue of these top 20 now standing at £5.51m (H1 07/08: £3.81m) at the close of the six month period and representing an annualised average of £0.55m, per customer (H1 07/08: £0.38m). EBITDA for the period was £0.24m (H1 07/08: £0.49m). The Company recorded an operating loss in the first half of £0.42m (H1 07/8: loss of £0.08m) primarily as a result of the continued and increased investment in the Company's growth combined with higher operational costs: this included investment in the first phase of our Asia Pacific expansion plan with the purchase of Exchange Technology Pty Ltd in July and the investment in additional offerings and service infrastructure. The total operating expenses at £7.24m (H1 07/08: £4.80m / H207/08: £6.35m) include three elements; Cost of Sales, covering third party licences sold directly to a customer and cost of development of specific customer funded work; Amortisation and Depreciation; and Company overheads (Opex). Amortisation and Depreciation increased during the period by £0.09m to £0.66m (H107/08: £0.57m). The Company's overheads increased by £1.61m from £3.16m in H1 07/08 to £4.77m in the period. This increase was due to: • The full period effect of acquisitions: £0.50m. Exchange Systems Technologies Ltd (now known as FFastFill Post-trade Processing, or “PTP”) was only included in Financial Year 07/08 for one quarter and Exchange Technology Pty Ltd was included from 1 July 2008 . • Investment in growth: £0.30m This includes, implementation of improved communication links to some exchanges and linking our US and UK data Centres with two transatlantic links. This will improve customers' trading experience and as result help accelerate future growth. We have also invested in the PTP customer service capability and increased the development resources so that we can increase the revenue earning and internal investment capacity of the PTP team. This should lead to additional customer development revenue in the second half as well as allowing us to progress our PTP strategic projects. The latter includes transitioning the service to the Linux operating system, enhancing its multi asset capability and, for deployment later in 2009, developing a fully shared environment for back office customers. We have also increased our Asia Pacific sales coverage. • Czech exchange rate: £0.12m A significant part of our development team is based in Prague and the exchange rate £ : CZ Koruna has moved on average between the periods by 18% (FY 2007/08: 38 Koruna per £ / FY 2008/09: 31 Koruna per £). This has increased the operating expenses charge to the Income Statement by £0.12m. • Other overheads expenses: £0.55m Opex staff cost increased £0.23m and third party costs increased £0.31m. The latter includes London infrastructure cost increases of £0.15m owing to London data centre cost increases. Our previous contracts had protected us through the last financial year from the substantial rise in London costs. • Plc cost increase: £0.15m Executive directors' salaries had been waived in the first half of last year. These are now being paid in line with executive directors' contracts: in addition there was an increased group accrual during the period for share-based payments. Our cash position at the close of the period stood at £1.37m (H1 07/08: £1.88m / H2 07/08: £2.42m). The 31 March 08 cash balance was £0.60m higher than had been expected due primarily to earlier receipts from customers which had been expected in April 2009. The additional net cash outflow was due to increased capital expenditure on operational assets and investment in our expanded software offering to drive future growth. Cash flow from operations was £0.26m (H1 07/08: £0.46m). The reduction was due to the increased operating loss referred to above. During the period we spent £0.29m (H1 07/08: £0.21m) on equipment to support our service delivery and £0.75m (H1 07/08: £0.39m) on new software services referred to in the Operational Review section of this report. We have a £0.75m two year loan taken out with KBC Bank to finance the purchase of Exchange Technology Pty Ltd. The acquisition of Exchange Technology Pty Ltd was completed on 1 July 2008 and incurred a cost of £0.92m paid in cash and a share consideration amounting to £0.24m. £0.15m of the cash consideration is being held in escrow covering the two year warranty period. The acquisition has brought a good customer base and skill-set to the group. We are now in the process of exploiting these assets and working on the integration of middle office software to enable us to offer a single middle office service with global coverage. We expect to see the first successes in the market with new wins shortly. The acquisition had a negative impact on the half year results of £0.05m and remains on track to be earnings neutral in the first twelve months and earnings enhancing in subsequent years. Our people During the period we conducted a full review of all roles within our organisation and, as a result, have been able to identify and make a number of small organisation changes that will increase efficiency, provide a common look and feel to our support activity across our entire service suite, and introduce a common approach to our testing activity. In addition, we have streamlined some roles within the organisation and increased emphasis in certain areas on driving growth. These changes will further enhance our client service and on behalf of the entire Board I would like to thank our staff for the skill they have demonstrated and commitment they have shown in serving our customers in the past six months. Outlook Today we have a broad geographical footprint which allows us to serve more clients, in more areas of the world at any time of the day or night: a significant benefit to us as a service-led business. We have an enhanced service range, which is stronger and more flexible than ever before, and opens up new opportunities to us as well as strengthening our position in areas where we are already entrenched. Most importantly we have continued to grow our business in both existing and new clients during the first half of the year, confirming that there remains a clear market need for our offerings. Against this backdrop, the Board has made a firm decision to continue investing for growth through the second half of the year. We believe that investing now in platforms and processes to underpin our business and maintain our high levels of service will enhance our ability to continue to grow over the longer term. Whilst focusing on these strategic investments, such as our expansion in Asian markets, we will continue to tightly manage our cost base and maintain the working capital disciplines we have put in place over the past three years. As we have previously said, no business can be immune to the current exceptional market conditions. The Board recognises that there is more uncertainty in the market at the current time and unforeseen events could occur in the months ahead. Whilst turbulent markets present opportunities for leaner, more agile and fast moving businesses like ours the timing of these opportunities is difficult to predict. However, as a result of the investments we continue to make in our business, we have confidence that our medium and long term growth prospects remain sound. Keith Todd Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Operational Review Market dynamics At the same time, the focus within financial and trading institutions on improving risk management systems is increasing and FFastFill is well placed to benefit from this trend. The nature of the Company's business model enables customers to incur low or in some cases no upfront costs when implementing a new FFastFill system. As a result, the FFastFill SaaS offering – particularly in “front to middle” and risk management form – allows customers to adopt new, more effective systems quickly and with minimum disruption to their business. Back office systems generally carry a higher level of upfront replacement cost and, as a result, FFastFill is focused at this current time on selling add-ons to its customer's existing systems rather than relying on the sale of entirely new systems. Longer term the investments that have been made and continue to be made in migrating the Company's back office software to Linux and the shared back office environment will reduce significantly the up front cost, thus increasing FFastFill's competiveness and reducing barriers to change. A truly global footprint FFastFill's global reach is now also supported internally by the use of common Company-wide processes and IT to support all aspects of the business. Remaining on the topic of global expansion, the FFastFill Board (the “Board”) announced in May the first phase of an Asia Pacific Strategy with the acquisition of Exchange Technology Pty Ltd (“ET”). This acquisition has allowed the Company to establish a true global middle office service as well as the third key leg of our “follow the sun” service strategy. Not only has this acquisition expanded our global reach, it has also expanded the Company's reach into the trading process providing a fertile opportunity to sell middle office capability into its existing customer base as well as opening up the opportunity to inject FFastFill services into ET's clients. Looking to the future, the Board is extremely pleased that, as a result of the successful Placing announced today, the Company will now be able to press ahead with the second phase of its Asia Pacific expansion plan starting in the second half of this financial year. While it will add costs in the short term, it will significantly enhance the growth opportunity open to FFastFill in the coming years. It will enable the global deployment of FFastFill technology and open the way for a fully competitive offering to be directed at key incumbents. Connectivity and infrastructure centres will be progressively opened in four cities in the Asia Pacific region; Singapore , Sydney , Hong Kong and Tokyo . This will mark a further expansion of FFastFill's Global ‘city-centric' expansion strategy, in what remains a strategically important and economically significant region for the Company. A strengthened offering • Trading Pro (Front End) • Risk Pro (Risk Management) • FFastFill Seals (Middle Office) • FFastFill Eclipse (Back Office) Operations CONSOLIDATED INCOME STATEMENT
1. Basis of Preparation The consolidated half yearly financial information has been prepared on a consistent basis with the accounting policies that are expected to apply in the full year financial statements for the year ending 31 Mach 2009, which will be prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards as adopted by the EU. The accounting policies are also consistent with those used in the preparation of the full year financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2008 The financial information contained within this interim report has been prepared in accordance with International Accounting Standard 34 (IAS 34 Interim Financial Reporting) and are unaudited. They were approved by the board and authorised for issue on 19 November 2008 . 2. Significant Accounting Policies Revenue Share-based payments Share option and warrants granted prior to 7 November 2002 , have been excluded from the share-based payment calculation, as permitted by IFRS 2 Share-based payment. Internally generated intangible assets – software development expenditure An intangible asset arising from development is only recognised if all of the following conditions are met: The intangible asset is considered to be technically feasible and the project to create it is sufficiently resourced to be capable of completion. There is an intention to complete the asset and both the intention and ability to sell it. It is reasonably expected that the asset is likely to generate net future economic benefits Development costs in relation to the asset can be reliably measured. Where no internally generated intangible asset can be recognised, development expenditure is recognised as an expense in the period in which it is incurred. Capitalised development expenditure is stated at cost less accumulated amortisation and impairment losses. The expenditure capitalised includes the cost of materials and direct labour. Amortisation is charged to the income statement on a straight-line basis over the estimated useful lives of the products concerned. The amortisation period for development costs incurred on the Group's development is five years. Going concern During the period, the group made losses of £527,000 and had net assets at 30 September 2008 of £10,135,000 (including cash at bank and in hand of £1,369,000). As disclosed in the Chairman's Statement on pages 1 to 3, the directors have taken steps to further develop the group's range of products and services, which they expect to lead to new customers contracts later this year. On this basis, the directors have prepared the accounts on the going concern basis. 3. Segmental Information Geographical segment
6. Exceptional items Exceptional items relate to the reorganisation costs of integrating Exchange Systems Technology Ltd (now known as FFastFill Post-trade Processing Ltd) into FFastFill Plc and its subsidiaries. 7. Taxation The group has no liability to UK Corporation tax as the group made a loss for the purposes of Corporation Tax. 8. Loss per share and diluted loss per share Loss per share is calculated by dividing the loss attributable to ordinary shareholders for each period by the weighted average number of ordinary shares in issue during each period, as follows
For the purposes of dilution, share options are non-dilutive. 9. Acquisition On 1 July 2008 the FFastFill Australia Pty Ltd acquired the entire issued share capital of Exchange Technology Pty Ltd for a total consideration of £1.164m. The consideration consisted of £0.920 million paid in cash and £0.244 million paid in shares The aggregate results for their transactions for the period from completion of 1 July 2008 to 30 September 2008 was £0.085 million of revenue and £0.052 million of operating loss If the acquisition of Exchange Technology Pty Ltd had been completed on the first day of the financial year, the revenues would have been £0.180 million and the loss attributable to equity holders of the parent would have been £0.04 million of operating profit The fair value of net assets acquired is based on the best estimate available at which this financial information has been prepared.
The directors consider that the goodwill comprises synergies and other benefits to the business which are expected to arise from the acquisition. These assets are not separately identifiable.
During the interim period 10,540,159 ordinary shares of 1p were issued as part of the consideration for acquisition of Exchange Technology Pty Ltd and Exchange Systems Technology Ltd and the exercise of the share options. 11. Financial informatio The financial information set out in this half yearly report does not constitute statutory accounts as defined in section 240 of the Companies Act 1985. The financial information for the six month periods ended 30 September 2008 and 2007 is neither audited nor reviewed. Information relating to the year ended 31 March 2008 is derived from the statutory accounts for that period, which have been reported on by the Company's auditors and delivered to the Registrar of Companies. The auditors' report on those accounts was unqualified and did not contain a statement under section 237(2) or (3) of the Companies Act 1985. 12. Interim dividen The directors do not intend to declare a half yearly dividend 13. Availability of Interim Repor Copies of these interim results will be sent to shareholders shortly and will also be available at the Company's registered office at 1-3 Norton Folgate , London E1 6DB and from the Company's website at www.ffastfill.com where this announcement is also reproduced. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||