5th Feb 2019 07:00
5 February 2019
Earthport plc
("Earthport", "the Company" or "the Group")
H1 Trading Update
Earthport (AIM: EPO.L), the leading payment network for cross-border transactions, is pleased to provide a trading update in respect of the 6 months to 31 December 2018.
Financial highlights
· Core payment business revenues, comprising payment transaction revenues and specifically attached foreign exchange revenues, were 18.5% higher at £11.8 million (H1 FY18: £10.0 million), reflecting higher transaction volumes and changes in both pricing and mix of business.
· Total revenues grew by 4.5% to £16.1 million (H1 FY18: £15.1 million) with FX business revenues and professional services revenues down on prior year.
· During the period £3.0 million of one-off, transformation and business restructuring costs were incurred.
· Cash and cash equivalents at 31 December 2018 of £23.1 million (30 June 2018: £28.3 million).
Operational highlights
· Appointment of new CEO, CFO and executive management team.
· Executed an enterprise wide re-organisation, streamlining and focusing the organization to support the delivery of the board approved strategy.
· Further extended Earthport payment network with 2 new routes and taken first steps in IT transformation to enable efficient scaling up in the core payment business.
· Redesigned commercial proposition to tackle platform and marketplace client opportunities.
· Selectively increased core payment business customer base with targeted new signings whilst increasing average payment transaction volume and revenue per payment client.
· Average payment business transaction volumes reached more than 1 million per month with December month the highest ever recorded for the company.
· Value of payments processed by Earthport increased 12% to £5.8 billion (H1 FY18: £5.2 billion).
In line with expectation, Earthport has grown the core payments business whilst at the same time restructuring and repositioning the company building the capability to increase scale.
As announced on 25 January, the Board has recommended to shareholders an all cash offer for the Company made by Mastercard UK Holdco Limited ("Bidco"), an indirectly wholly-owned subsidiary of Mastercard.
Amanda Mesler, CEO of Earthport, commented: "I am delighted with the progress of the company in line with our expectations, and the revised strategy we set out to achieve. It is great to see growth in payment volumes and improving efficiency in the last six months."
For further information, please contact:
Earthport Plc 020 7220 9700
Amanda Mesler, Chief Executive Officer
Alexander Filshie, Chief Financial Officer
Newgate 020 7653 9840
Bob Huxford / Ian Silvera / Imogen Humphreys
N+1 Singer (Nomad & Joint Broker) 020 7496 3000
Mark Taylor / James White
Shore Capital (Joint Broker) 020 7408 4090
Toby Gibbs / Stephane Auton
About Earthport
Earthport provides cross-border payment services to banks and businesses. Through a single relationship with Earthport, clients can seamlessly manage payments to almost any bank account in the world, reducing costs and complexity to meet their customers' evolving expectations of price, speed and transparency.
Earthport offers clients access to global payment capability in 200+ countries and territories, with local automated clearing house ("ACH") options in 88 countries and an evolving suite of currencies and settlement options.
Earthport continues to invest in the establishment of in-country bank partnerships across the world, bringing together its deep market and regulatory expertise in order to maintain compliant and commercially competitive services.
The result - a global payments network accessed via a single relationship, delivering significant cost and operating efficiencies for banks and businesses servicing high volumes of lower value payments.
Headquartered in London with regional offices in New York, San Francisco, Miami and Singapore, Earthport is a public company traded on AIM, the London Stock Exchange's international market for smaller, growing companies (AIM: EPO).
Please visit www.earthport.com for more information.
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