8th Jul 2025 07:00
08 July 2025
Celebrus Technologies plc
Final Results for the year ended 31 March 2025
Celebrus Technologies plc (AIM: CLBS, "the Group", "Celebrus"), the data solutions provider, announces its final results for the year ended 31 March 2025.
Financial Highlights
· The Group results are presented in US Dollars for the first time.
· From 1 April 2025, the Group is introducing a number of changes to its commercial contractual arrangements with customers which will impact accounting for contracts including the definition of cost of sales, the segmentation of revenue type and the move to straight line revenue recognition of future license revenues.
· Annual recurring revenue* (ARR) up 13.9% to $18.8 million (31 March 2024 restated: $16.5 million), as calculated under the new definition.
· Total Revenue of $38.7 million (FY24: $40.9 million), with Software Revenue (excluding third-party hardware) of $30.3 million (FY24: $27.7 million), an increase of 9.4%.
· Gross profit margin of 61.9% (FY24: 52.9%) due to a lower proportion of lower margin third party hardware revenue. Software revenue gross margin of 75.0% (FY24: 72.8%).
· Adjusted profit before tax** of $8.7 million (FY24: $7.6 million), and statutory profit before tax of $7.3 million (FY24: $7.0 million)
· Adjusted diluted EPS of 18.24 cents (FY24: 13.39 cents) and diluted basic EPS of 15.78 cents (FY24: 12.27 cents)
· Proposed final dividend of 2.32p (FY24: 2.23p), making a total dividend for the year of 3.27p (FY24: 3.15p), an increase of 3.8%.
· Year-end cash position of $31.5 million (FY24: $38.5 million), with the lower balance resulting from the unwinding of debtor and creditor positions related to third party hardware.
Operational Highlights
· Key new customer wins including a global airline and a major fintech business, and strong upsells into existing customers including a financial services customer in the US, another airline, and a financial institution in APAC.
· Alignment of the business to focus on three inputs to our pipeline: marketing generated leads, partner sourced and influenced leads, and sales direct prospecting leads.
· The Group has fully transitioned to Celebrus Cloud as the primary deployment option for customers as this provides a mutually beneficial arrangement and aligns with our core strategy.
· Continued investment into the Celebrus platform to maintain its market-leading differentiation and to assist customers with their key use cases and challenges.
· The Group has continued to transition away from supporting and reselling third-party software so as to align with our core strategy of focusing on our own software sales as the core business driver.
Current trading and Outlook
· The new financial year has started with a strong pipeline, new customer wins boosting ARR to almost $20.0m and a good proportion of revenue already committed to the current financial year.
* ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) is redefined as the amount of revenue contracted at a point in time, and derived from Celebrus software licenses and Celebrus and non-Celebrus managed services, that is expected to recur within the next twelve months, and excludes third-party software license revenue. The prior year ARR has been restated on this basis. An adjustment was made to the ARR definition to more closely align the Group's ARR definition with other businesses in a similar sector .
** Adjusted profit before tax is calculated before amortization of intangibles, restructuring costs, acquisition costs, foreign exchange gains/losses and share based payment charges.
Bill Bruno, Chief Executive Officer commented:
"Overall, this was a year of continued progress offset by operational and macroeconomic challenges, particularly some slowing down of customer decision making in the second half of our financial year, as we described in the trading update in April. While we naturally focus on the challenges, and how to improve upon our learnings, I believe our results show that the company and team excelled in many areas and made significant progress in bringing to life our strategic vision for Celebrus."
Inside Information: This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of article 7 of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) 596/2014 as it forms part of domestic law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. Upon the publication of this announcement via Regulatory Information Service, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.
Enquiries
Celebrus Technologies plc Bill Bruno, Chief Executive Officer Ash Mehta, Chief Financial Officer
|
+44 (0) 1932 893333 |
Cavendish (Nominated Adviser & Joint Broker) Julian Blunt / Edward Whiley / Elysia Bough, Corporate Finance Tim Redfern / Harriet Ward, Corporate Broking
| +44 (0) 20 7220 0500 |
Canaccord Genuity (Joint Broker) Simon Bridges / Andrew Potts
| +44 (0) 20 7523 8000 |
About Celebrus Technologies plc
Celebrus sets the gold standard globally for improving marketing effectiveness and preventing fraud across all industries. We are laser-focused on improving the relationships between brands and consumers via better data. This means innovating better ways to manage digital identity and know your consumers, even when they are not logged in. Celebrus provides frictionless data capture across all digital channels and devices, ensures compliance by design, and ultimately makes digital data instantly usable wherever required. We thrive on solving complex digital data challenges to help businesses succeed.
Celebrus Technologies Plc is a global business operating in over 30 countries today. We are quoted on the AIM Market of The London Stock Exchange (CLBS).
For more information, please see www.celebrus.com .
Chairman's statement
Fiscal 2025 showed continued growth in our core Celebrus products despite the impact of the uncertain global economic environment on our new business sales efforts. Key new customer wins during the year include a global airline and a major fintech business.
Although the uncertainty persists, the pipeline continues to grow. We have already recorded two new key wins in FY26; a European bank and a US trading and brokerage technology company. These wins demonstrate the strength of the Celebrus platform value proposition.
We see a continuation of the market trends of stricter privacy regulations, the deprecation of third-party cookies, and continued increases in instances of online fraud and digital identity attacks. Against this backdrop our customers continue to evaluate how best to respect the various privacy laws in the territories in which they operate so that brands can satisfy their demand for real-time customer intelligence while maintaining the trust of their consumers.
In this environment we have continued to reinforce our market-leading position as a result of ongoing investment into product innovation. During the year, our product team made significant breakthroughs in compliant mobile data capture while navigating the shifting landscape of data and privacy regulations.
We have also continued to refine and mature our sales and go-to-market activities, with clearer messaging, increased granularity and tracking of lead generation and the ultimate outcomes of leads by source. This allows us to fine-tune our approach and pivot more quickly to what activities produce the best return on our sales and marketing investment.
We believe that the changes in our financial reporting which we announced in April 2025, notably as a result of the changes to contracts, terms and conditions and product services and the way in which we will now recognize license revenue on a straight-line basis for new contracts will, along with the revised definition of ARR, provide greater clarity into the operations of the Group and allow investors a better view into the high-value Celebrus-related components of revenue.
Finally, during the year we formalized a new set of values and are embedding these into the organization to reinforce our company culture. We consider this to be a key factor for any successful company's performance.
While we are undoubtably in a time of transition, the outlook is positive, despite the global economy, and the pipeline continues to grow. We remain confident that we can deliver long-term shareholder value in the coming years.
CEO Statement
Overall, this was a year of continued progress offset by operational and macroeconomic challenges, particularly some slowing down of customer decision making in the second half of our financial year, as we described in the trading update in April. While we naturally focus on the challenges, and how to improve upon our learnings, I believe our results show that the company and team excelled in many areas and made significant progress in bringing to life our strategic vision for Celebrus.
We have now fully transitioned to Celebrus Cloud as the primary deployment model for new customers choosing to put their faith in our software platform. Our hosting has massively advanced in just a few short years, and we have developed an incredible amount of innovation, scale, and automation to support our customers deployed in these single-tenant, private cloud instances we manage on their behalf. This is a win-win and has brought incredible reliability and scale to our platform globally for brands. For our customers it means a shorter time to "go live", and ensures they are always running the latest version of our platform. For us, it means simplified delivery of new features which broadens usage, strengthens retention, and powers upsells.
The combination of exclusive Cloud delivery for new clients, the growth in customers signing up for a managed service, and changes to the detail behind how we contract with customers support our move to the new revenue recognition model for Celebrus software license revenue. Historically, we would recognize the full year value of the license on each of the anniversary dates of the agreement irrespective of when in the financial year the anniversary occurred. Now, beginning with FY26, we will recognize the software license revenue monthly over the term. Our invoicing and cashflow remains annually up-front, and our contracts continue to be a three-year term. This new model will also be used for upsells, and renewals on a go-forward basis in FY26.
Over the past year, we have restructured and refined our global marketing function, expanded our partners to include both tech and consulting organizations, refined our direct sales team, and expanded our customer success team. These functions are solely focused on growing our Celebrus software revenues globally, and we are making additional adjustments starting in FY26 to further sharpen that focus. For growth, we are now aligned on creating three inputs to our pipeline: marketing generated leads, partner sourced and influenced leads, and sales direct prospecting leads. These pipelines, and the goals behind them, are how we will define and reward success across the business.
As outlined in our trading update in April, we continue to focus on the sales and service of proprietary Celebrus products. In FY26 we are aligning our financial reporting and corporate objectives to reinforce this strategic focus. While the reduced focus on third-party software will reduce near-term revenue, we believe that over the medium term our investors will benefit from our decision to move away from this non-Celebrus revenue as certain customer agreements are renewed. Any remaining third-party software revenue will be clearly denoted in the 3rd party portion of our income statement and is now excluded from our definition of ARR.
We have provided a refactored view of ARR which is solely focused on two key components of revenue; 1) Celebrus Licenses and Celebrus Cloud, and 2) Managed Services. Project revenues and third-party revenues will no longer be included in our refined definition of ARR. We believe this provides the cleanest view for investors as we believe they will value our business and monitor our success in growing our own more valuable software revenues. On this newly defined basis we achieved 13.9% growth in ARR in FY25 to $18.8m (31 March 2024 restated: $16.5 million), with the difference from previously reported ARR being largely impacted by third-party software licenses.
We continue to invest heavily in innovation, relying on strategic insights, market/customer demand, and partner input. We continue to provide two major updates each year, delivering innovation faster than our competitors. Significant innovations in FY25 include enhanced analytics capabilities, advertising list building, and mobile data capture. A further advance took place in early FY26 with the launch of v10 of our Celebrus platform.
We continue to learn, evolving our value proposition and associated messaging as well as educating the team about how best to tell our story. This strengthened differentiation highlights the benefits of partnering with Celebrus. It is a competitive market, and we continue to see our best success with frustrated decision makers who have struggled to deliver important use cases in both Marketing and Fraud. We are excited to see the success of these learnings bring key wins across FY26.
Partners remain an important part of our go-to-market strategy. We continued to strengthen existing partnerships while also creating new ones based on client needs or shared customers. Our approach is pragmatic, focusing on partnerships that result in clear, joint differentiation in the market and existing success stories. This is an important evolution of the partner approach to ensure we are building a good flow of leads to support our sales growth targets, as well as building a partner base which can assist in delivering Celebrus projects to make our business more scalable.
We also continue to make investments in cybersecurity and compliance. In FY25 we launched key features such as our anonymized data collection, which pairs nicely with our existing CX Vault feature. Compliance is paramount in the world today and our software is now live in over 35 countries in some of the most security-conscious verticals. We will continue to make compliance a priority for our first-party data platform so that our customers can build better relationships with their consumers while remaining fully compliant with the highest levels of data privacy regulations.
We remain open to a potential acquisition of intellectual property to bolster the Celebrus Platform and will continue to monitor the market for opportunities in FY26.
We have started FY26 with a strong pipeline, good momentum, and a solid backlog. Moreover, contract wins in the first quarter of this financial year, announced earlier today, have increased our ARR to almost $20.0 million. We are confident in our ability to deliver in this new financial year and continue to execute on our vision for this business globally.
Chief Financial Officer's review
Overview
The Group is pleased to present its results in US Dollars for the first time. With the majority of the Group's revenues in US Dollars (for many global customers as well as US customers), and expected future revenue growth also expected to be predominantly in US Dollars, the change to reporting results in US Dollars from the year commencing 1 April 2024 would both reduce the risk of foreign exchange losses and also better reflect the focus of the Group's business on US customers and large global customers who typically prefer to contract in that currency. These results also see some important changes to our financial reporting which are detailed below. Results for the year ended 31 March 2024 have been restated in accordance with these changes.
Income statement
Group Revenues for the year were $38.7 million (FY24: $40.9 million). Celebrus Software derived revenues, comprising Celebrus license revenues and related managed services, support and maintenance and implementation services ("Software Revenues"), were up 9.5% to $30.3 million (FY24: $27.7 million). Third-party revenues, which are highly variable year to year, and comprise mostly low margin revenue from the sale of hardware as part of certain customers' installations were $8.4 million (FY24: $13.2 million). The Group regards software revenues as being a more useful and consistent indicator of the growth of the business.
The gross margin was 61.9% (FY24: 52.9%) due to a lower proportion of low margin hardware revenues and a higher proportion of higher margin software revenues. Excluding hardware revenues and the associated cost of sales, the underlying Software Revenues gross margin was 75.0% (FY24: 72.8%).
Operating expenses rose 10.3% to $16.3 million (FY24: $14.8 million) due to ongoing investment into sales, marketing and customer delivery.
Non-operating expenses of $1.3m (FY24: $0.6m) were incurred in relation to share-based payments arising from share option grants during the year of $0.6 million (FY24: $1.0 million), amortization of intangible assets of $0.3 million (FY24: $0.2 million), foreign exchange losses of $0.1 million (FY24: gain of $0.7 million) and restructuring costs of $0.3m (FY24: $0.1m).
The Group's cash balances were well managed and generated $1.1 million of interest income.
The adjusted profit before tax (excluding non-operating expenses) was $8.7 million (FY24: $7.6 million), whilst the unadjusted profit before tax was $7.3 million (FY24: $7.0 million).
The average number of employees decreased slightly during the year to 151 (FY24: 154), as the Group continued to build efficiencies into how we operate.
Taxation
The group tax charge was lower at an effective rate of 14.2% (FY24: 28.0%). This was driven by the successful utilization in the year of the patent box regime for both FY24 and FY25 and was achieved despite the lower eligibility for super deduction rates for research and development costs.
Financial position
The balance sheet remains strong with no debt and a cash balance at the year-end of $31.5 million (FY24: $38.8 million). The previous year end cash balance was unseasonably high due to the timing of working capital movements. The Group had amounts of approximately $8.0 million due for payment in the first quarter of FY25 relating to the purchase of hardware for customers and other non-repeating payments, sums which have all now been paid.
The Goodwill balance of $12.2 million (FY24: $11.9 million) is comprised of goodwill from the acquisition of Celebrus in 2015, and the acquisition of Prickly Cactus in 2021. The Other intangible assets balance of $1.6 million (FY24: $1.2 million) is comprised of purchased IPR, trade names and capitalized development costs. The Group expenses the majority of its R&D costs and capitalized just $0.6 million in the year (FY24: $0.4 million) which met the criteria of development costs under IAS38. The amortization related to non- acquisition related goodwill amounted to $0.3 million (FY24: $0.2 million).
Property, plant and equipment decreased to $1.6 million (FY24: $2.1 million) due to lower spending on fixtures and equipment and the runoff of the right-of-use assets.
The freehold property in Assets held for sale was successfully sold in the year for $4.0 million and net proceeds broadly equated to book value, meaning there was no loss or gain against book value.
Trade debtors were $5.0 million (FY24: $7.5 million) and of that amount, $4.3 million had been received by the end of June. Due to the Group's customer base consisting primarily of large typically multinational businesses, credit risk is not a major risk for the Group and bad debt write-offs during the year were nil (FY24: nil).
Trade creditors decreased to $2.0 million (FY24: $2.6 million), whilst accruals decreased to $2.1 million (FY24: $7.5 million). Hardware inventory stood at nil with all inventory held at the prior year end shipped to the customer in April 2024 . The Group seeks to pay all suppliers within our stated contractual terms (typically 30 days) and the supplier payment days at the year-end were 26 days (FY24: 26 days). Deferred revenue fell to $7.1 million (FY24: $22.7 million) partly due to the delivery of the hardware that had been held in inventory at the prior year end (together with the associated software revenues), and partly due to the low number of three-year contract renewals arising in the year.
Cash flow and funds
The Group generated operating cashflows of $7.1 million (FY24: $7.7 million) before working capital outflows of $14.9 million (FY24: inflows of $13.2 million) relating to the deferred revenues mentioned above.
Investing activities resulted in an inflow of $4.2 million (FY24: outflow of $0.2 million) due to the sale of the freehold property. With a healthy cash balance, net interest income was $1.1 million (FY24: $0.8 million), set off principally against capitalized development costs of $0.6 million (FY24: $0.4 million).
Financing activities in the year resulted in an outflow of $3.5 million (FY24: $3.0 million) comprised mainly of normal dividends paid of $1.6 million (FY24: $1.6 million), the exercise of share options of $1.2 million (FY24: $1,000) and a net purchase of own shares of $0.4 million (FY24: $1.3 million). The board is intending to make further share purchases during the current year though this will be on a limited basis intended to negate the dilutive impact of annual share option grants.
The Group continues to be debt free and maintains a robust financial position. The healthy cash balance is important not just to enable the Group to invest in future growth opportunities as appropriate, but also to counter any concerns about vendor risk from our customers, who are typically large multinational businesses.
Annual Recurring Revenue
ARR is a key alternative performance measure and is generally used to provide assurance regarding the forward visibility of revenues and earnings. It has previously been provided as a single metric in relation to all of the Group's recurring activities. As such that metric has incorporated elements of recurring revenue not related to the Group's core Celebrus product offering.
With a view to making this metric more meaningful and reflective of the Board's key strategic focus on growing Celebrus license and associated support revenues, the definition of ARR has been changed to include solely recurring revenues derived from Celebrus software licenses and both Celebrus and non-Celebrus managed services. ARR now excludes third-party software license income, which is an element of some of our legacy on-premises deployments.
On that basis, Group ARR grew by 13.9% to $18.8 million (FY24: $16.5 million) during the year, of which $13.6 million relates to Celebrus customers and $5.2 million relates to non-Celebrus platform customers.
Of the growth of $2.3 million during the year, $2.8 million (equating to 16.9% growth in the year) is from net contract wins (both new customers and upsell) with a $0.5 million, 3.1% churn from the customer base.
In the first quarter of the current financial year, the closure of a number of contracts including the two new Celebrus customer wins announced this morning, result in an increase in Group ARR to almost $20.0 million.
Earnings per share
Adjusted profit attributable to owners of the parent was $7.4 million (FY24: $5.5 million) assisted by a low tax charge as outlined above.
Basic EPS for the year was 16.20 cents (FY24: 12.62 cents and diluted basic EPS was 15.78p (FY24: 12.27p). The basic figure has been calculated using the weighted average number of shares in issue being 39,460,436 (FY24: 39,781,184) and the diluted figure using 40,522,596 (FY24: 40,899,072).
Adjusted basic EPS was 18.73 cents (FY24: 13.77 cents) and adjusted diluted EPS was 18.24 cents (FY24: 13.39 cents). following adjustments for amortization, share-based payments, exceptional items, foreign exchange expenses and the associated tax on these adjustments.
Dividend
During the year, the Company paid ordinary dividends of $1.6 million (FY24: $1.6 million).
The Board is today proposing a final dividend, subject to shareholder approval at the 2025 AGM, of 2.32p per share (FY24: 2.23p), which along with the interim dividend of 0.95p per share (FY24: 0.92p) paid in January 2025 brings the full year dividend to 3.28p per share (FY24: 3.15p), an increase of 3.8%. The final dividend is expected to be paid on 26 August 2025 to shareholders on the register as at the close of business on 25 July 2025.
Purchase of own shares
During the year, the Company again undertook a limited share buyback program to acquire Ordinary shares of 2p in the capital of the Company. The shares are held for the purpose of satisfying future obligations in relation to its employees' or other share schemes, thereby mitigating dilution for existing investors.
At 31 March 2025, 128,342 shares had been acquired in the year and following the issue of 378,953 treasury shares to satisfy share option exercise this brought the number of shares held in Treasury to 685,884 (FY24: 936,495).
Equity
At the year end, the Group had $42.6 million (FY24: $37.2 million) attributable to the shareholders of the Company. The increase in the year was principally made up of retained earnings in the year of $6.4 million (FY24: $5.0 million) set off against dividends paid during the year of $1.6 million (FY24: $1.6 million), share buybacks of $0.4 million (FY24: $1.3 million) with the balance of $0.7 million (FY24: $0.9 million) attributable to share -based payments.
Accounting changes effective 1 April 2025
As well as the change in definition of ARR described above, the group has implemented other changes in the current financial year:
· Revenue Recognition
o The historic approach taken under IFRS 15 commonly resulted in the recognition of software license revenue annually in a single lump sum for each year of a term contract, initially upon acceptance and/or deployment of the license and delivery of the license key, and then on each subsequent acceptance and/or deployment for multi-year contracts usually on the anniversary of the contract. Our standard contractual offer is a three-year commitment.
o The majority of Celebrus software proposals now include Celebrus Cloud hosting and services. As a result of this together with some changes to contractual terms and conditions, the Board has assessed these new contractual terms against IFRS 15 and believes that a different recognition of revenue under IFRS 15 is appropriate for these new contracts. In particular, it believes that a more standardized approach of of recognizing the revenue straight-line over the term of the license will be the relevant accounting treatment for these new contracts
o Managed services and support are currently recognized on a month-by-month basis and this approach will not change.
o The impact of these changes will be to slow down revenue recognition for all contract wins, whether new customers or upsells or renewals, such that in the year of the win only a number of months of revenue will be recognized rather than a full twelve months. This results in a dampening of revenues and therefore profits during the transition which will last three years while all contracts are renewed on the new terms. Another consequence of these changes will be a more even recognition of these elements of revenue between the first and second halves of the Group's financial year.
o There is no impact on underlying cashflows, as customers will continue to pay annually in advance, and therefore whilst adjusted profit before tax has historically been a reasonable proxy for operating cash generation (before working capital movements), under the new approach the cash generation will be higher than the Adjusted PBT during the years of transition.
· Cost of sales
o Historically, the Group has reallocated a certain proportion of employee costs from operating expenditure to cost of sales to reflect those employees involved in delivering products and services to customers. The board believes that this is unhelpful in terms of tracking the overall cost base of the Group (which is largely fixed or semi-fixed in nature) as well as distorting to the Group's gross margin and gross margin percentage. Moreover, many software companies do not allocate employee costs into cost of sales, and so this change to reporting will allow easier comparison of the Group's results against other companies.
o In future there will be no such reallocation with cost of sales including only software costs related to customer delivery and occasional costs for hardware which cannot be sold to customers on an agency basis.
· Revenue categories
o The new categories for future reporting will provide greater clarity, allowing shareholders to better see the more value-adding components of the revenue mix. These new categories will be:
§ Celebrus Software
This will include Celebrus software licenses, product support and the managed service, hosting, and support thereon. We will no longer routinely break out the implementation services as a separate line because every contract will contain an element of services to be utilized month by month over the life of the contract; the implementation service will be just one element of that. This bundled service reflects the stronger customer success relationships we have with customers now in which customer specific changes and improvements tend to be ongoing. Therefore, these services will be recognized as part of the total Celebrus software derived revenue on the basis that the cost to the customer includes ongoing implementation services for additional projects post-initial implementation. This category includes all project and services work, which is normally non-ARR but can be repeating. There may be some customers who will not want the services bundled and for those we will split out implementation services and recognize these on a percentage complete basis, but those contracts will also provide for general services support through each year of the contract's duration.
§ Non-Celebrus managed services
For our non-Celebrus software customers, this will include the managed services, and any other relevant support.
§ Professional Services
This category will include professional services provided to Celebrus clients on a project basis (over and above day-to-day services incorporated into the Celebrus service fee as outlined above)
§ Third Party Products
This will ordinarily include the agency margin on any hardware and third-party software licenses sourced by the Group on behalf of customers.
The Group's new ARR metric includes contracts only relating to the first two of these revenue categories.
Consolidated income statement for the year ended 31 March 2025
Note | 2025 |
| 2024 | |||
| $'000 | $'000 | ||||
Continuing operations |
| |||||
Revenue | 3 | 38,675 |
| 40,886 | ||
Cost of sales | (14,740) | (19,266) | ||||
Gross Profit |
| 23,935 |
| 21,620 | ||
Administration expenses | 4 | (17,638) | (15,396) | |||
| ||||||
Profit from operations | 6,297 |
| 6,224 | |||
Finance income | 1,115 | 763 | ||||
Financing costs | (71) | (22) | ||||
Profit before tax | 5 | 7,341 | 6,965 | |||
Tax |
| (948) | (1,947) | |||
Attributable to equity holders of the parent |
| 6,393 | 5,018 |
Earnings per share from continuing operations attributable to the equity holders of the parent
Statutory |
| |||||
Basic (cents) | 6 | 16.20 | 12.62 | |||
Diluted (cents) | 6 | 15.78 |
| 12.27 |
Consolidated statement of comprehensive income for the year ended 31 March 2025
2025 |
| 2024 | ||||
| $'000 | $'000 | ||||
Attributable to equity holders of the parent |
| 6,393 |
| 5,018 | ||
Other comprehensive income: |
| |||||
Items that will not be reclassified to profit or loss |
| |||||
Exchange differences on translation of foreign operations | 264 | 658 | ||||
Total comprehensive income for the year attributable | ||||||
to equity holders of the parent |
| 6,657 |
| 5,676 |
Consolidated statement of changes in equity attributable to Equity Holders of the Parent for the year ended 31 March 2025
Share capital | Share premium | Merger reserve | Revaluation reserve | Treasury shares | Retained earnings | Total | |
$'000 | $'000 | $'000 | $'000 | $'000 | $'000 | $'000 | |
Balance at 1 April 2023 | 1,059 | 4,406 | 8,207 | 1,378 | (1,833) | 20,319 | 33,536 |
Dividends paid | - | - | - | - | - | (1,553) | (1,553) |
Purchase of own shares | - | - | - | - | (1,309) | - | (1,309) |
Settlement of share-based payments | - | - | - | - | 558 | (557) | 1 |
Share-based payment charge | - | - | - | - | - | 889 | 889 |
Transactions with equity holders | - | - | - | - | (751) | (1,221) | (1,972) |
Profit for the year | - | - | - | - | - | 5,018 | 5,018 |
Other comprehensive income | - | - | - | - | - | 658 | 658 |
Total comprehensive income | - | - | - | - | - | 5,676 | 5,676 |
Balance at 1 April 2024 | 1,059 | 4,406 | 8,207 | 1,378 | (2,584) | 24,774 | 37,240 |
Dividends paid | - | - | - | - | - | (1,614) | (1,614) |
Purchase of own shares | - | - | - | - | (405) | - | (405) |
Settlement of share-based payments | - | - | - | - | 1,198 | (1,528) | (330) |
Share-based payment charge | - | - | - | - | - | 1,056 | 1,056 |
Disposal of Revaluation Reserve | - | - | - | (1,378) | - | 1,378 | - |
Transactions with equity holders | - | - | - | (1,378) | 793 | (708) | (1,293) |
Profit for the year | - | - | - | - | - | 6,393 | 6,393 |
Other comprehensive income | - | - | - | - | - | 264 | 264 |
Total comprehensive income | - | - | - | - | - | 6,657 | 6,657 |
Balance at 31 March 2025 | 1,059 | 4,406 | 8,207 | - | (1,791) | 30,723 | 42,604 |
Consolidated statement of financial position as at 31 March 2025
Note | 2025 |
| 2024 |
| |||||
| $'000 |
| $'000 |
| |||||
Non-current assets |
|
| |||||||
Goodwill |
| 12,240 | 11,929 |
| |||||
Other intangible assets |
| 1,649 | 1,234 |
| |||||
Property, plant and equipment |
| 1,626 | 2,097 |
| |||||
Trade and other receivables | 8 | - | 294 |
| |||||
Deferred tax assets |
| 323 | 304 |
| |||||
| 15,838 | 15,858 |
| ||||||
Current assets |
|
|
|
| |||||
Inventories | - | 4,661 |
| ||||||
Trade and other receivables | 8 | 9,231 | 10,951 |
| |||||
Tax receivables | 135 | 115 |
| ||||||
Cash and cash equivalents | 31,541 | 38,790 |
| ||||||
| 40,907 | 54,517 |
| ||||||
Assets in disposal groups classified as held for sale |
| - | 3,788 |
| |||||
Total assets |
| 56,745 | 74,163 |
| |||||
|
|
|
| ||||||
Current liabilities |
|
|
|
| |||||
Trade and other payables | 9 | (4,518) | (10,772) |
| |||||
Tax liabilities | (619) | (1,875) |
| ||||||
Deferred revenue | (7,128) | (22,271) |
| ||||||
Lease obligations |
| (345) | (253) |
| |||||
| (12,610) | (35,171) |
| ||||||
Non-current liabilities |
|
|
|
| |||||
Lease obligations |
| (899) | (1,105) |
| |||||
Deferred revenue |
| - | (100) |
| |||||
Deferred tax liabilities |
| (632) | (547) |
| |||||
|
| (1,531) | (1,752) |
| |||||
Total liabilities |
| (14,141) |
| (36,923) |
| ||||
|
|
|
| ||||||
Net assets |
| 42,604 | 37,240 |
| |||||
|
| ||||||||
Equity |
|
| |||||||
Share capital |
| 1,059 | 1,059 |
| |||||
Share premium account |
| 4,406 | 4,406 |
| |||||
Merger reserve |
| 8,207 | 8,207 |
| |||||
Revaluation reserve |
| - | 1,378 |
| |||||
Own shares |
| (1,791) | (2,584) |
| |||||
Retained earnings |
| 30,723 | 24,774 |
| |||||
Attributable to equity holders of the parent | 42,604 | 37,240 | |||||||
Consolidated cash flow statement for the year ended 31 March 2025
2025 |
| 2024 |
| |||
| $'000 |
| $'000 |
| ||
Operating activities |
|
| ||||
Profit before tax | 6,655 |
| 6,965 |
| ||
Adjustments for: |
|
|
|
| ||
Depreciation of property, plant and equipment | 599 | 368 |
| |||
Amortization of intangible assets | 276 | 207 |
| |||
Finance income | (1,115) | (763) |
| |||
Finance expense | 71 | 22 |
| |||
Share-based payments | 583 | 962 |
| |||
(Gain) / loss on sale of property, plant and equipment | 42 | (21) |
| |||
| ||||||
Operating cash flows before movements in working capital | 7,111 | 7,740 |
| |||
| Decrease / (increase) in receivables | 2,005 | (751) |
| ||
Decrease / (increase) in inventories | 4,661 | (4,661) |
| |||
(Decrease) / increase in payables | (21,471) | 18,610 |
| |||
Cash generated from operations | (7,694) |
| 20,938 |
| ||
Taxes paid | (652) | (176) |
| |||
Net cash generated from operating activities | (8,346) | 20,762 |
| |||
Investing activities |
|
|
|
| ||
Interest received | 1,115 | 763 |
| |||
Purchase of property, plant and equipment | (191) | (517) |
| |||
Purchase of intangible fixed assets | (89) | (48) |
| |||
Sale of Land and Buildings | 3,972 | - |
| |||
Capitalization of development costs | (603) | (396) |
| |||
Net cash used in investing activities | 4,204 | (198) |
| |||
Financing activities |
|
|
|
| ||
Dividends paid | (1,614) | (1,553) |
| |||
Lease repayments | (231) | (126) |
| |||
Interest paid | (71) | (22) |
| |||
Purchase of own shares | (405) | (1,309) |
| |||
Exercise of share options | (16) | 1 |
| |||
Net cash used in financing activities | (2,337) | (3,009) | ||||
Net increase in cash and cash equivalents |
| (6,480) |
| 17,555 | ||
| Cash and cash equivalents at start of year | 38,790 | 21,218 |
| ||
| Effect of translation | (770) | 17 |
| ||
Cash and cash equivalents at end of year | 31,541 |
| 38,790 |
Notes to the financial statements
1. General information
Celebrus Technologies plc is a public limited company incorporated and domiciled in England and Wales and quoted on the AIM Market, hence there is no ultimate controlling party.
2. Significant accounting policies
Basis of preparation
The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with International Accounting Standards adopted by the Companies Act 2006 applicable to companies reporting under International Accounting Standards.
The presentation and functional currency of the financial statements is US Dollars and amounts are rounded to the nearest thousand pounds. They are presented for the first time in US Dollars, from GB Pounds previously, with the change effective from 01 April 2024. As the majority of the Group's revenues are in US Dollars (for many global customers as well as US customers), and expected future growth also expected to be predominantly in US Dollars, this reduces the risk of foreign exchange losses and also better reflects the focus of the Group on large global customers who typically prefer to contract in US Dollars.
The financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention, with the exception of land and buildings which are held at valuation.
The financial information contained in this announcement does not constitute the Group's statutory accounts for the year ended 31 March 2025 but is derived from those accounts which have been audited and which will be filed with the Registrar of Companies in due course.
The auditors' report on the Annual Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 31 March 2025 was unqualified, did not draw attention to any matters by way of emphasis and did not contain a statement under s498(2) or s498(3) of the Companies Act 2006.
Change in reporting currency
With effect from 1 March 2023, the reporting currency of the Group was changed from sterling to US dollars. The change in presentation currency provides investors and other stakeholders with greater transparency in relation to the Group's performance and reduces foreign exchange volatility on earnings given a large proportion of the Group's underlying operating profit originates in US dollars. The amounts for prior periods have been translated into US dollars at average exchange rates for the relevant periods for income statements and cash flows, with spot rates used for significant transactions, and at the exchange rates on the relevant balance sheet dates for assets and liabilities. Share capital, share premium and other equity items have been translated into US dollars at historical exchange rates either at 31 March 2022, or on the date of each relevant transaction.
Going concern
The Group and Company's business activities, together with the factors likely to affect its future development, performance and position and the risks and uncertainties have been considered.
The Directors have reviewed stress tests for future cashflows over the 18 months to 30 September 2026 to ensure there are sufficient financial resources, together with income from existing contracts with a number of customers, to cover budgeted future cashflows. On this basis, the Directors have adopted the going concern basis in preparing these accounts.
3. Business and geographical segments
IFRS 8 Operating Segments requires these to be identified on the basis of internal reports about components of the Group that are regularly reviewed by the chief operating decision maker to allocate resources to the segments and assess their performance.
Whilst having three product groups, the Group operates the business as a single business with no separation into divisions or allocation or people or assets to a particular division. The management team is responsible for all three product groups with no individual having responsibility for a particular product group. This is consistent with the internal reporting for management purposes. Management does however monitor revenues by revenue type.
Information is presented to the Board on the revenue analysis below:
· Licenses
· Celebrus Cloud Hosting, support and maintenance
· Services
· Third party products
The revenue analysis set out below is consistent with that provided to the Board of Directors.
2025 | 2024 | |||||||
$'000 | $'000 | |||||||
Licenses | 17,155 | 15,151 | ||||||
Celebrus Cloud Hosting, support and maintenance | 9,434 | 9,478 | ||||||
Services | 3,742 | 3,060 | ||||||
Software revenues |
|
| 30,331 |
| 27,689 | |||
Third party products | 8,344 | 13,197 | ||||||
Revenue | 38,675 | 40,886 |
Major customers over 10% of revenue:
2025 | 2024 | |||||||
$'000 | $'000 | |||||||
Customer 1 | Customer 1 | |||||||
Licenses | 7,756 | 7,850 | ||||||
Celebrus Cloud Hosting, support and maintenance | 5,191 | 5,109 | ||||||
Services | 2,239 | 1,269 | ||||||
Software revenues |
|
| 15,186 |
| 14,228 | |||
Third party products | 7,755 | 12,908 | ||||||
Revenue | 22,941 | 27,136 |
This major customer is a channel partner with a number of end customers behind it. The values shown above are the amounts invoiced to the channel partner for onward billing to the end customer.
Geographical information | ||||||
Group | ||||||
2025 | 2024 | |||||
$'000 | $'000 | |||||
United States of America | 29,535 | 31,879 | ||||
United Kingdom | 6,991 | 7,549 | ||||
Rest of Europe | 908 | 1,070 | ||||
Others | 1,241 | 388 | ||||
38,675 | 40,886 |
The geographical revenue analysis is determined by the domicile of the customer.
4. Administrative expenses
2025 | 2024 | |||||
$'000 | $'000 | |||||
Operating expenses | 16,305 | 14,785 | ||||
Amortization of intangible assets | 276 | 206 | ||||
Share-based payments | 583 | 962 | ||||
Net foreign exchange differences | 135 | (679) | ||||
Restructuring costs | 339 | 122 | ||||
Administrative expenses
| 17,638 | 15,396 |
5. Adjusted profit before tax
| ||||||||||
2025 $'000 | 2024 $'000 |
| ||||||||
$'000 |
| $'000 |
| |||||||
Profit before tax | 7,341 | 6,965 |
| |||||||
Amortization of intangible assets | 276 | 206 |
| |||||||
Share-based payments | 583 | 962 |
| |||||||
Net foreign exchange differences | 135 | (679) | ||||||||
Restructuring costs | 339 | 122 | ||||||||
Adjusted profit before tax | 8,674 | 7,576 |
| |||||||
6. Earnings per share
The calculation of earnings per share is based on profit attributable to owners of the parent and the weighted average number of Ordinary shares in issue during the year. The adjusted earnings per share figures have been calculated based on earnings before adjusted items. These have been presented to provide shareholders with an additional measure of the Group's year-on-year performance. For diluted earnings per share, the weighted average number of Ordinary shares in issue is adjusted to assume conversion of all dilutive potential Ordinary shares arising from share options granted to employees where the exercise price is less than the market price of the Company's Ordinary shares at the year end.
Details of the adjusted earnings per share are set out below: |
| ||||||||||||||
2025 | 2024 |
| |||||||||||||
$'000 |
| $'000 |
| ||||||||||||
Profit attributable to owners of the parent | 6,393 | 5,018 |
| ||||||||||||
Amortization of intangible assets | 276 | 206 |
| ||||||||||||
Share-based payment | 583 | 962 |
| ||||||||||||
Net foreign exchange differences | 135 | (679) |
| ||||||||||||
Restructuring costs | 339 | 122 |
| ||||||||||||
Tax on the adjustments | (333) | (153) |
| ||||||||||||
Adjusted profit attributable to owners of the parent | 7,393 |
| 5,476 |
| |||||||||||
| 2025No. |
2024No. |
| ||||||||||||
Basic weighted average number of shares, excluding own shares, in issue | 39,460,436 | 39,781,184 |
| ||||||||||||
Dilutive effect of share options | 1,062,160 | 1,117,888 |
| ||||||||||||
Diluted weighted average number of shares, excluding own shares, in issue | 40,522,596 | 40,899,072 |
| ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
2025 | 2024 |
| |||||||||||||
Cents | Cents |
| |||||||||||||
Basic Earnings per share | 16.20 | 12.62 |
| ||||||||||||
Diluted Earnings per share | 15.78 | 12.27 |
| ||||||||||||
Adjusted Basic Earnings per share | 18.73 | 13.77 | |||||||||||||
Adjusted Diluted Earnings per share | 18.24 | 13.39 | |||||||||||||
7. Dividends
2025 | 2024 | ||||||||
$'000 |
| $'000 | |||||||
Amounts recognized as distributions to equity holders | |||||||||
Final dividend for the year ended 31 March 2024 of 2.23p (for the year ended 31 March 2023: 2.15p) per share | 1,155 | 1,089 | |||||||
Interim dividend for the year ended 31 March 2025 of 0.95p (31 March 2024: 0.92p) per share | 459 | 464 | |||||||
1,614 |
| 1,553 | |||||||
The proposed final dividend for the year ended 31 March 2025 of 2.32p is subject to shareholder approval at the AGM and has not been included as a liability in these financial statements. The final dividend is expected to be paid on 26 August 2025 to shareholders on the register as at the close of business on 25 July 2025.
8. Trade and other receivables
Current | 2025 | 2024 | ||
$'000 | $'000 | |||
Trade receivables | 5,010 | 7,471 | ||
Other debtors | 100 | 86 | ||
Prepayments | 1,875 | 2,043 | ||
Accrued Income | 2,246 | 1,351 | ||
9,231 | 10,951 | |||
| ||||
Ageing of receivables | 2025 | 2024 | ||
$'000 | $'000 | |||
Less than 30 days |
| 2,237 | 1,587 | |
31 to 60 days | 347 | 5,572 | ||
61 to 90 days | - | 156 | ||
91 to 120 days | 2,426 | 5 | ||
More than 120 days | - | 151 | ||
5,010 | 7,471 |
An amount of $4.3 million of the $5.0 million of trade receivables had been received as at 30 June 2025.
The average credit period taken on sales of goods and services was 63 days (FY24: 79 days).
In accordance with IFRS 9, the Group performed a year-end impairment exercise to determine whether any write down in amounts receivable was required, using an expected credit loss model. The expected loss rate for receivables less than 120 days old is 0% and above 120 days has not been considered on the basis of immateriality. In determining the recoverability of a trade receivable, the Group considers any change in the credit quality of the trade receivable from the date credit was initially granted up to the reporting date.
9. Trade and other payables
| 2025 | 2024 | ||
| $'000 | $'000 | ||
Trade payables | 1,958 | 2,587 | ||
Other taxes and social security | 229 | 236 | ||
Other creditors | 231 | 439 | ||
Accruals | 2,100 | 7,510 | ||
4,518 | 10,772 |
There is no material difference between the fair value of payables and their carrying value.
Trade payables comprise amounts outstanding for trade purchases and ongoing costs. The average credit period taken for trade purchases is 26 days (FY24: 26 days). Their carrying value approximates to their fair value.
10. Investor presentation
The investor presentation will be available on the company's website https://investors.celebrus.com/ later today. Bill Bruno (CEO) and Ash Mehta (CFO) will provide a live presentation relating to the full-year results via the Investor Meet Company platform today at 2pm BST.
Investors can sign up to Investor Meet Company for free and add to meet Celebrus via the link below:
https://www.investormeetcompany.com/companies/celebrus-technologies-plc
11 Annual Report and Accounts and Notice of AGM
The 2025 Annual Report and Accounts will be available on the company's website https://investors.celebrus.com/ in the next few days. The Notice of AGM will be made available on the company's website, along with the shareholder proxy form, and a shareholder notification on 15 July when the notification will be posted to shareholders for the purposes of the AIM Rules for Companies and in accordance with the Company's articles of association. Hard copies will also be available from the Company's registered office Elmbrook House, 18-19 Station Road, Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex, TW16 6SB.
12. Annual General Meeting
The 2025 Annual General Meeting of the Company will be held at 9am BST on Wednesday 20 August 2025 at the Company's registered office. This will comprise formal business only. The directors plan to broadcast a Q&A session later in the day at 2pm BST via the Investor Meet Company platform. Investors can sign up to Investor Meet Company for free and add to meet Celebrus via the link below:
https://www.investormeetcompany.com/companies/celebrus-technologies-plc
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Celebrus Tech