Final Results

23 April 2018

Tax Systems plc

("Tax Systems", the "Group" or the "Company")

Audited Results for the year ended 31 December 2017

Delivering on our promises of organic growth, acquisitions and debt reduction

Tax Systems plc (AIM: TAX), a leading supplier of corporation tax software and services, is pleased to announce its audited results for the year ended 31 December 2017.

Comparable numbers for the 12 months to 31 December 2016 are not representative of the Group in its current form, as they only incorporate a five-month contribution from Tax Computer Systems Limited ("TCSL") following its acquisition on 26 July 2016 (the "Acquisition"). Unaudited pro-forma figures for 2016 have been used for year-on-year comparisons comprised of TCSL's results for the period from 1 January to 25 July 2016 when it was under private ownership and the Group's results post the Acquisition for the period 26 July to 31 December 2016.

Strategic Highlights:

· Acquisition of OSMO Data Technology Limited ("OSMO") on 3 April 2017 for £3.2m in shares, adding automation of data extraction from core ERP systems to the Group's capabilities

Financial Highlights

· Early adoption of IFRS 15 'Revenue from Contracts with Customers'

· Year-on-year total revenue growth of 17% (2017: £15.1m, 20161: £12.9m)

· Year-on-year organic and comparable revenue growth of 10% (2017: £15.1m, 20162: £13.8m)

· 90% of revenue is recurring from software licences,10% from professional services

· Gross margin of 93%

· Year-on-year organic and comparable Adjusted EBITDA3 growth of 11% (2017: £7.0m, 20162: £6.3m)

· Representing an Adjusted EBITDA3 margin of 46%

· Year-on-year reduction in net debt4 of 16% (31 December 2017: £20.5m, 31 December 2016: £24.4m)

· Net debt4 now represents less than 3x Adjusted EBITDA3

· Conversion of Adjusted EBITDA3 to operating cash flow after exceptional items of 98%

Operational Highlights

· Customer retention rate remained high at 95%

· 114 new annuity licences added to the base

· Year-on-year average annuity order value growth of 9%

· Year-on-year average services day rate growth of 25%

· Continued investment in and enhancement of the core product, Alphatax, including the successful launch of version 17 which incorporated the largest UK Finance Act update in history

· Development of new solutions and services, including:

· Data Entry, designed to help accountancy firms streamline the process of collecting information from data owners; and

· A new solution to help organisations with country-by-country reporting

1 2016 is on a proforma basis, applying IFRS 15 and excluding results from OSMO

2 2016 on a proforma basis including comparable figures for OSMO

3 Adjusted EBITDA is defined as operating profit or loss before exceptional items, depreciation, amortisation and share-based payments

4 Net debt is defined as bank borrowings and loan notes recognised as liabilities and the equity element of the loan notes recognised in equity less cash

Gavin Lyons, CEO, commented:

"We are delighted to report on a successful year in which we delivered against our strategic objectives of growth, retention, acquisitions, debt reduction and operational transformation. We have considerably increased the level of organic growth and contracted annuity base, secured new customers and completed key milestones in our technology roadmap via the acquisition of OSMO and ongoing internal development. Importantly, this has been accompanied by a reduction in our levels of debt due to continuing high levels of recurring revenues, gross margin and cash generation.

"We enter the new year well positioned for growth and continue to actively consider further acquisitions in order to extend our capabilities and create further value for our shareholders."

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014.

About Tax Systems

Tax Systems is a leading provider of corporation tax software and services in the UK and Ireland. The business has a long track record of being a key supplier of corporation tax software and services to many of the largest companies and the accounting profession in the UK and Ireland.

Find out more at www.taxsystems.com

Chairman's Statement

I am pleased to report to shareholders in respect of the year ended 31 December 2017.

The year under review saw the Company make encouraging progress to its longer-term objective of being a leading international provider of regulatory compliance software and professional services.

Our current focus is on the corporation tax software and services market in the UK and Ireland. In this business we met all internal and external targets including increasing our revenue, contracted annuity base and number of new customers. Of particular note has been the level of cash generated from the business, which has allowed us to reduce debt levels faster than initially planned. Further details of our progress in 2017 is set out in the following CEO and CFO reports.

We made significant investments during 2017 to maintain, update and de-risk our solutions and services in light of the increasing regulatory landscape. Over time we expect more demand for automation and process control which is where we want to provide enhanced functionality and value.

We look forward to extending our technology offering by way of continued product development and targeted acquisitions. In particular, in the shorter term, to broaden the range of taxes covered.

The integration of OSMO, acquired in April 2017, was largely completed and considered a successful transition. OSMO's leading edge technology is now embedded as part of our core value proposition and helps organisations automate the collection of data from large accounting / ERP systems.

We firmly believe we are well placed to exploit the opportunities that will arise from the ever-greater digitalisation of tax compliance and in compliance more generally.

We look forward to the future with confidence.

Annual General Meeting

The Annual General Meeting of the Company will be held on 20 June 2018 at 11 am at the offices of K&L Gates, One New Change, London EC4M 9AF.

Clive Carver

Non-Executive Chairman 

Chief Executive Officer's Review

2017 has been a year of significant and exciting activity for the Company on the transformational journey to develop and upgrade our products and services in order to support our customer base of large corporates and accountancy firms in meeting the increasing demands of tax compliance.

Growth:

During 2017, we achieved year-on-year revenue growth of 17% (10% comparable organic growth) and contracted annuity base growth of 12% (6% comparable organic growth) through 114 new annuity licenses added and average order value growth of 9%.

This growth was achieved through a combination of activities including the appointment of a seasoned sales and marketing director, increased sales and pre-sales activity, incentivisation of sales staff, better customer negotiation and the launch of new solutions and services.

New order intake was driven by additional technology modules, increased user licenses and cross selling other portfolio solutions to existing customers. In addition, several new customers were won.

New solutions and services launched in the year included 'Data Entry' which is designed to help accountancy firms streamline the process of collecting information from data owners, and a new service to help organisations with country-by-country reporting.

We can further improve the sales and marketing engine but to achieve these results without substantial investment has been a great success and a credit to the team.

Retention:

During 2017, customer retention remained strong at a rate of 95%, in line with management's expectations. The high level of retention is largely due to two factors, the first being that our core technology solution (Alphatax) continues to deliver for our customers. 2017 saw the release of the largest UK Finance Act in history and our tax content team did an outstanding job ensuring the legislation was successfully encoded into our core product within a timely manner. The architecture of the technology enables us to do this on a continual basis with a team that is well versed in the practice with documented processes and procedures. The second is the focus and quality of our local support teams, the members of which are experts in both customer service and tax. These teams are proud of our Company, solutions and services and have a real desire to ensure our customers are responded to effectively and efficiently.

As well as strong customer retention, we also continued to retain our expert employees. Key activities completed in the year included restructuring the organisation and individual accountabilities, establishing the core leadership team, promoting several internal staff, recruiting new talent, a change of headquarters, modernisation of the Company brand and the adoption of 'agile' development methodologies.

I am very pleased with the way employees have embraced change and would like to thank everyone for their contribution. We all continue to be excited about the future and working together to achieve our potential.

Acquisitions:

During 2017, we defined our vision and strategy which, along with having a greater understanding of the market and customer demand, highlighted a need to quickly provide a solution to automate the collection of data - the fundamental building block of any compliance process.

Having evaluated various options, we completed the acquisition of OSMO in April 2017 in return for the issue of 4.7 million ordinary shares of the Company, valuing OSMO at £3.2 million.

OSMO is a leading provider of automated data extraction services that currently connects to 310 versions of accounting software packages, whether they be cloud, on premise or enterprise versions. Using OSMO's technology, finance and tax teams can significantly decrease the manual workload associated with data collection, reduce errors and risk from re-keying data and increase the speed and accuracy of data production. OSMO's solution is an ideal add-on to the existing software and services that Tax Systems already provides.

I am pleased with OSMO's progress to date; the team delivered against its 2017 performance expectations and have fitted in well both technically and culturally. We have one final stage of the integration left which is moving OSMO's core IT systems and processes onto our standard operating platform within shared services. This activity has begun and is expected to be finished by the end of H1 2018. At that point we can consider the business fully integrated.

In addition, further acquisition targets were identified and considered during the year. Disappointingly we declined to proceed with two potential targets after finalising the due diligence process but in both cases it was the right decision for the business.

We continue to actively evaluate other acquisition opportunities but will only proceed where we believe a business is the right strategic fit and will enhance both the Company's offering and shareholder value.

Debt reduction:

During 2017, we reduced our net debt by 16% to £20.5m as a result of our revenue growth, customer retention rate and excellent cash conversion. In addition, we were also successful in recovering £0.6m of VAT relating to the fees payable on the acquisition of Tax Computer Systems Limited in July 2016 ("TCSL").

Net debt at the end of the year represented less than 3x Adjusted EBITDA. By continuing to focus on sustainable growth and customer retention we will be able to further reduce our debt or utilise the facilities to fund further acquisitions.

Operational transformation:

A key focus of the business has been on achieving operational excellence through its people, processes, systems and facilities - an absolutely critical requirement of any business but often over looked and lacking due to the size and complexity of the implementation of a target operating model.

Significant time and effort has been put into defining and achieving this, and, though there are still some tasks to be completed, I am pleased that the majority of this work has been done.

Outlook:

In summary, I'm pleased to report that we delivered against all key strategic objectives in the year with the headlines being revenue growth of 17% and debt reduction of 16%. Moving forward, the Company will continue to focus on the execution of its strategy in order to deliver against its goals and vision. Whilst there is still work to be done to get the business to where we would like it to be in order to maximise the market opportunity, I am confident in our ability to achieve this.

We believe we have the right technology platform from which to continue to grow, in no small part thanks to the hard work and talent of our people, whom I would like to thank for their dedication and contribution to the ongoing success of the business.

The Board remains confident in the ability of the business to deliver increasing shareholder value over the coming years. I look forward to 2018 and beyond with continued passion and excitement.

Gavin LyonsChief Executive Officer

Financial Review

The results1 for the year ended 31 December 2017, which is the first full year of operations of the Group since the acquisition of TCSL, were in line with expectations. Cash generation was particularly strong which resulted in a reduction in net debt of 16% from £24.4m as at 31 December 2016 to £20.5m as at 31 December 2017.

1The results for the year ended 31 December 2017 are comprised of the results for Tax Systems plc and TCSL for the full year together with the results for OSMO for the nine months from acquisition on 3 April 2017. The results for the year ended 31 December 2016 are comprised of the results for Tax Systems plc for the full year together with the results for TCSL for the five-month period from acquisition on 26 July 2016.

Early adoption of IFRS 15 'Contracts with Customers'

The new reporting standard on revenue recognition, IFRS 15 'Revenue from Contracts with Customers' ("IFRS 15") has an effective date of 1 January 2018. However, the Group has early adopted this standard with an initial application date of 1 January 2017. The early adoption of IFRS 15 has resulted in changes in the timing of recognition of revenue.

Previously, the licence fee element of software licence agreements was recognised in the month in which the agreement commenced. The early adoption of IFRS 15 for the year ending 31 December 2017 has resulted in a change in our accounting policy to one of recognising revenue from software licence agreements evenly over the term of the agreement.

The change in policy to IFRS 15 does not impact on the lifetime profitability of contracts nor the cash flows associated with contracts.

The main consequences of the change in accounting policy are:

Ø Revenue is phased over the life of the software licences in line with the delivery of outcomes to clients and, consequently, the timing of profits is re-profiled;

Ø An increased level of deferred income was recognised. At 31 December 2017, the Group's balance sheet includes deferred income of £6.9m in relation to contracts where outcomes are being delivered over time. The majority of deferred income will unwind within 12 months and is expected to be replaced by similar levels, subject to changes to the contract portfolio; and

Ø Tax assets increased by £0.8m as a result of the change in accounting policy.

As permitted by IFRS 15, the Company has applied the change using a modified retrospective approach for which the comparative results for 2016 have not been restated. Instead, a cumulative adjustment has been recognised to opening retained earnings at 1 January 2017 in relation to agreements which still required performance by the Group at that date.

Revenue and gross margin

Revenue for the year to 31 December 2017 amounted to £15.1m (2016: £5.8m) from a mixture of sales of licenced software solutions and services mostly to large blue-chip corporates and major accountancy firms. 89% (2016: 87%) of revenue was derived in the UK with the balance from Ireland.

Revenue from annually renewable software licences amounted to £13.5m (2016: £5.0m), representing 90% (2016: 86%) of total revenue. This revenue stream provides the Group with a strong recurring revenue model.

The acquisition of OSMO contributed £1.0m to total revenue, comprised of £0.8m from licences and £0.2m from professional services.

Gross profit amounted to £14.0m (2016: £5.4m) after accounting for cost of sales which comprised of directly attributable staff costs and third-party hosting costs. The corresponding gross margin is 93% (2016: 93%).

Operating costs

Total operating costs for the year were £14.2m (2016: £8.6m). The increase was largely driven by the full year impact of the operating costs of TCSL, the costs of OSMO since acquisition and the full year charge for amortisation and depreciation of £6.4m.

Operating loss, EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA

The operating loss for the year was £0.2m (2016: loss £3.2m).

The Directors use Adjusted EBITDA as a non-GAAP measure in order to assess the underlying performance of the Group and to incentivise management. This measure allows management and investors to compare performance without the potentially distorting effects of one-off items, non-operational items and the charge for non-cash share based payments. Adjusted EBITDA is defined as operating profit or loss before exceptional items, depreciation, amortisation and share-based payments.

Adjusted EBITDA amounted to £7.0m (2016: £2.7m) for the year. A reconciliation of operating loss to Adjusted EBITDA is as follows:

Net finance costs

Net finance costs for the year amounted to £1.6m (2016: £0.8m), principally made up of interest payable on bank borrowings and unsecured loan notes of £1.2m (2016: £0.6m), together with a non-cash effective interest charge of £0.4m (2016 £0.2m) on the equity settled element of the cost of the loan notes.

Loss before tax

The Group reported a loss before tax of £1.9m in 2017 (2016: £4.0m). The loss for the year is after accounting for an amortisation and depreciation charge of £6.3m (2016: £2.6m) as a result of the significant value of intangible assets attributed to customer contracts and intellectual property rights.

Tax

The tax credit for the year was £1.4m (2016: £0.3m). The credit for 2017 was principally represented by adjustments in respect of prior years, which mainly arose from the submission of enhanced R&D tax claims.

Statutory loss after tax

The reported loss after tax was £0.5m (2016: loss £3.7m).

Earnings per share

Basic loss per share was 0.59p (2016: 9.82p).

OSMO acquisition

On 3 April 2017, the Company completed the acquisition of the entire issued share capital of OSMO for £3.2m settled by the issue of 4,701,492 ordinary shares of 1p each in the capital of the Company ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 68p per share.

Long Term Incentive Plan and warrants

The Group's Long Term Incentive Plan ("LTIP") was established to incentivise certain directors and senior executives of the Group.

On 2 August 2017, the number of warrants issued to MXC Capital Limited ("MXC") was adjusted to reduce the entitlement of MXC to 4% of the fully diluted share capital, down from 6%, so that the pool available to management under the LTIP could be increased from 6% to 8% of shareholder value created.

The LTIP awards are structured as Growth Shares in Tax Systems Holdings Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company. Beneficiaries will share in a pool of up to 8% of shareholder value which is defined as the growth in value in the market capitalisation of the Company from the date of its re-admission to trading on AIM on 26 July 2016 as adjusted for further share issuance and capital returns if any. At the reporting date, LTIP awards equal to 8.0% (2016: 5.3%) of the growth in value have been made.

At 31 December 2017 MXC had warrants to subscribe for 3,362,641 Ordinary Shares (2016: 4,851,184 Ordinary Shares) at a price of 67p and 61p per share. The Company also has granted the Business Growth Fund ("BGF") an option to subscribe for 5,970,149 Ordinary Shares at a price of 67p.

The Board intends, in due course, to purchase a limited number of Ordinary Shares to set up a new LTIP scheme principally for the benefit of existing employees not included in the current scheme and staff either yet to join or who will become part of the Group by way of acquisition.

Cash flow and net debt

The Group generated £1.3m (2016: absorbed £2.8m) of cash during the year with the key components of the Group's cash flow being:

Conversion of Adjusted EBITDA to operating cash flow after exceptional items was 98%.

Net debt at 31 December 2017 amounted to £20.5m (2016: £24.4m) which comprised of the following:

Kevin Goggin

Chief Financial Officer 

1. Basis of Preparation

The financial information presented in this preliminary announcement is extracted from, and is consistent with, the Group's audited financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2017.

The preliminary announcement for the year ended 31 December 2017 was approved by the Board of Directors on 20 April 2018. The financial information set out above does not constitute the Company's statutory accounts for the year ended 31 December 2017 or 2016 but is derived from those accounts. Statutory accounts for 2017 will be delivered in due course. The auditors have reported on those accounts; their report was unqualified and did not contain a statement under section 498(2) or (3) of the Companies Act 2006.

IFRS 15 'Revenue from Contracts with Customers'

The Company has reviewed the way that it accounts for revenue from contracts with customers and has early adopted the new reporting standard on revenue recognition, IFRS 15 'Revenue from Contracts with Customers'. The Company has applied a consequent change in accounting policy by using a modified retrospective approach in which the comparative results for 2016 have not been restated, instead a cumulative adjustment has been recognised through retained earnings at 1 January 2017 in relation to agreements which still required performance by the Company at that date. Further details in relation to the changes are set out in note 12.

2. Segemental information

An operating segment is a component of the Group that engages in business activities from which it may earn revenues and incur expenses, including revenues and expenses that relate to transactions with any of the Group's other components. During the year ended 31 December 2017, the Group had one single operating segment, being the provision of software and services to corporates and accountancy firms.

5. Loss per share

Basic and diluted

Basic loss per share is calculated by dividing the loss attributable to owners of the parent by the weighted average number of Ordinary shares in issue during the year. Diluted earnings per share is calculated by adjusting the weighted average number of ordinary shares outstanding to assume conversion of all dilutive potential shares, represented by the LTIP awards, warrants and convertible loan notes. As the Group was loss-making, any options and warrants were considered to be 'anti-dilutive' and, as such, there is no separate calculation for diluted loss per share.

Details of the loss and weighted average number of shares used in the calculation are set out below:

6. Intangible assets

The Company entered into a £10,000,000 unsecured fixed rate loan notes agreement with the BGF with a 6.5 year term from 26 July 2016. Repayment will be made in four equal instalments semi-annually from 30 June 2021. The Company also granted the BGF an option to subscribe for 5,970,149 Ordinary Shares at a price of 67p at any time before 26 July 2023. In accordance with IAS 32, the loan notes and option issued to the BGF are deemed to be linked and are treated as a single financial instrument and shown at fair value. The fair value of the loan element was originally calculated at £7,203,000 using a discounted cash flow model over the term of the instrument and an effective borrowing rate of 13%, deemed by the Directors to be an appropriate market rate, reflecting the 6% coupon interest payments and the capital repayment profile of the loan notes. The balance of £2,797,000 was deemed to be the fair value of the equity element and was credited to Other Reserves.

10. Share capital and share premium

At 31 December 2017 the share capital of Tax Systems plc consisted of 80,703,381 (2016: 76,001,889) fully paid Ordinary shares with a nominal value of 1p per share. All shares are equally eligible to receive dividends and the repayment of capital and represent one vote.

On 26 July 2016, the Company issued 67,164,180 New Ordinary Shares with a nominal value of 1p at 67p each raising £45,000,000, before costs, as part of its funding of the acquisition of TCSL. At the same time the Company undertook a capital restructuring in order to reduce the number in shares in issue. The capital restructuring was effected by way of a consolidation, subdivision and reclassification of every 50 existing ordinary shares of 1p each into one new ordinary share of 1p each and one deferred share of 49p each. The deferred shares were then acquired by the Company and cancelled.

On 3 April 2017 the Company issued 4,701,492 Ordinary Shares for the acquisition of the entire share capital of OSMO.

11.Acquisitions

During the year the Company finalised the acquisition of TCSL and acquired the entire share capital of OSMO. Details of these acquisitions are set out below.

The cash flow in respect of acquisitions comprises the net recovery of the monies held as restricted cash at 31 December 2017, less the cash on acquisition of OSMO as follows:

The calculation of provisional fair values of consideration, assets and liabilities such as goodwill and intangible assets as well as the assessment of any impairment to fair values generally, involve estimations of likely future cash flows delivering from or accruing to those assets and liabilities.

Goodwill arose on this acquisition because the consideration paid effectively included amounts in relation to the benefit of expected synergies, revenue growth and future market development. These benefits are not recognised separately from goodwill because they do not meet the recognition criteria for identifiable intangible assets.

Judgement is also involved in selecting appropriate discount rates for determining the present value of those future cash flows. Final fair values may differ materially from those provisional values stated.

12. Adoption of IFRS 15 and change in accounting policy

The Group is a leading provider of corporation tax software and services in the UK and Ireland. The Group licences its proprietary tax compliance software to corporate customers and accounting and tax advisory practices to facilitate the tax compliance process - from data extraction, collection and management to compliance reporting through different calculation engines embedded in the Group's range of products.

Licenced software solutions

Customers predominantly enter into software licences to use the Group's software products. Software licenses are contractual arrangements whereby the customer purchases the right to continuously exploit the licenced functionality of the Group's products, including the right to be kept continuously updated and supported by the Group, over a fixed term of predominantly, 12 months.

Revenue from the sale of software licences, including the provision of access, continuous software upgrades and support represents approximately 90% of the group's revenues.

The sale of the software licence itself is not considered to be distinct from the provision of access and continuous software upgrades and support, which are not considered to be separate performance obligations. The Group's software licenses are therefore considered to be right of access arrangements with control of goods and services transferred to customers over the period of the contractual arrangement. The Group therefore considers that the delivery of access to software products constitutes a single performance obligation satisfied over time.

Professional services

The Group also derives revenues from the sale of professional services separate to its' licensed software products. The most significant components of professional services revenues are currently derived from iXBRL tagging and from projects involving implementation and installation management and the provision of technical support.

Revenue from the sale of professional services represents approximately 10% of the Group's revenues.

Contracts with customers for the sale of professional services are predominantly of a short duration and have specific outcomes which the Group considers to comprise its performance obligations. Contracts for the sale of professional services can be contracted on a time and materials or fixed fee basis. Revenue from both types of contract are recognised on fulfilment of the relevant performance obligation and are invoiced on the agreed basis; either time and materials or fixed fee.

The Group's revenues are disaggregated by service and geography as set out in note 5.

Accounting policy change

The Group has reviewed the way that it accounts for revenues from contracts with customers and has elected to early adopt the new reporting standard on revenue recognition, IFRS 15 'Revenue from Contracts with Customers'.

Following its review, the Company has changed its accounting policy with respect to revenue from the sale of software licences, including the provision of access, continuous software upgrades and support in order to recognise revenue evenly over the period of the licence. Previously the Group's accounting policy for the sale of software licences had been to recognise revenue predominantly on commencement of the licence period.

The new accounting policy most closely reflects the substance of the arrangements to provide access and services over the period of the licence.

Effect of accounting policy change

The Group has applied the change in accounting policy by using a modified retrospective approach as permitted by IFRS 15, in which the comparative results for 2016 have not been restated. Instead, a cumulative adjustment has been recognised through retained earnings at 1 January 2017 in relation to agreements which still required performance by the Group at that date as follows:

Deferred income will unwind through the Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income within a twelve month period and is expected to be replaced by a similar level of deferral into future periods.

If the acquisition of Tax Computer Systems Limited ("TCSL") had occurred on 1 January 2016 and IFRS 15 had been applied at that time, the revenue for TCSL would have been as follows:

The following summary consolidated statements of comprehensive income and financial position summarise the impact of adopting IFRS15 on the Group for the year ended 31 December 2017:

Performance obligations

The Group's contracts with customers typically cover a period of 12 months. In the judgement of management, the Group satisfies the performance obligations under these contracts over time. The consideration for these contracts is agreed in advance with the customer and is fixed. Payment for software is typically made annually in advance.

A summary of contract balances in the year ended 31 December 2017 is as follows:

No practical expedients have been applied on transition to IFRS 15.

No amounts have been recognised in relation to assets derived from costs to obtain or fulfil customer contracts.