19th May 2009 13:38
Emblaze Ltd. ("Emblaze" or "the Group")
Interim Management Statement
Ra'anana, Israel, 19 May 2009 - Emblaze is today announcing its Interim Management Statement for the period commencing 1 January 2009 to 31 March 2009 (the "Reported Period"):
Highlights
The Group's performance during the Reported Period remains in line with management expectations.
The Group's Growth arm, Formula Systems, achieved consolidated revenues of $135.7 million. Consolidated operating income totaled $8 million (Q1 2008: $6.5 million). Net income attributable to Formula amounted to $3.4 million (Q1 2008: $3 million).
The Emblaze Mobile Monolith device continues to make good progress and is expected to go into manufacturing this calendar year.
EMOZE is expected to commence contributing to Group revenues from several deals signed during the Reported Period.
* There has been no significant change in the Group's financial position during the Reported Period. Overview GROWTH ARM - FORMULA
The table belowsummarises the Q1 2009 performance of Formula in comparison to its Q1 2008 performance (selected items):
Formula - Financial Highlights Three months ended (unaudited consolidated results) March 31, 2009 2008 US$ in thousands % change Revenues 135,741 135,785 - Operating income 8,048 6,490 24 Net income attributable to Formula 3,413 3,045 12
During the Reported Period, the subsidiaries of our Growth arm, Formula Systems, achieved the following:
Matrix IT (TASE: MTRX) is one of Israel's leading integration and information technology services companies with expertise in banking, insurance, telecom, commerce and government IT solutions. In the period ending 31 March 2009, Matrix continues to maintain its position as a leader in the Israeli IT market, winning additional projects with local financial institutions, defence agencies, a pharmaceutical company as well as with telecommunication and hi-tech companies. The company has generated $92.4 million in revenues, an increase of 3% compared with $89.9 million in Q1 2008. Operating income reached $6.6 million, a decrease of 3% compared with $6.8 million in Q1 2008. Net income amounted to $5.4 million, a decrease of 5% compared with $5.7 million in Q1 2008. The functional currency of Matrix is the NIS and as such its statement of operations is translated to the USD at average exchange rate prevailing during the applicable period. Eliminating the exchange rate fluctuation, Matrix has showed a significant increase in revenues, operating income and net income of 15%, 6% and 7%, respectively, compared with Q1 2008. On 23 April 2009, Matrix distributed a dividend of NIS 33.5 million (approximately $7.9 million) to its shareholders.
Magic Software is a provider of multiple-mode application platform solutions, including Full Client, Rich Internet Applications (RIA) or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) modes as well as business and process integration solutions. Magic has offices in 10 countries and a presence in over 50, as well as a global network of ISV's, system integrators, value-added distributors and resellers as well as consulting and partnerships with global IT leaders including SAP AG, salesforce.com, IBM and Oracle. Industries that are significantly represented by Magic's partners include finance, insurance, government, health care, logistics, manufacturing media, retail and telecommunications.
During Q1 2009, Magic has experienced a decrease of 9% in total revenues reaching $13.8 million compared to $15.1 million in the first quarter of 2008. The decrease is primarily attributed to a strengthened dollar exchange rate, which accounted for approximately 6% of the total revenue decrease. The recessionary environment in the US and Japan were contributory factors in a decrease in revenue of approximately 3% compared to the equivalent period in 2008. Magic's operating income amounted to $0.7 million, compared to a loss of $0.1 million recorded in the same period of 2008. Net income totaled $0.7 million compared to $0.1 million in the first quarter of 2008. Total cash and short-term investments as of March 31, 2009 increased by 10% to $36.0 million compared to $32.6 million as of December 31, 2008.
On the operational side, Magic is experiencing longer sale cycles as a direct result of the current world-wide economic environment. However, its growth drivers continue to remain in place with increasing demand for its application platform and business integration solutions. Magic is now listed by Gartner as one of 13 strategic partners and long-term providers of application infrastructure. Its uniPaaS application platform continues to gain recognition among authoritative media publications such as Forbes.com, SoftwareCEO and Computer Business Review (CBR) and despite the severe recession in Japan, Magic has gained new Japanese customers now using uniPaaS to develop RIA. Existing application platform partners worldwide are showing increased interest in migrating to uniPaaS to prepare for the new opportunities presented by RIA and SaaS.
Sapiens International Corporation is a global provider of information technology ("IT") solutions that modernize business processes to enable insurance and other leading companies to quickly adapt to change. Its solutions, sold as customizable software modules, align IT with business demands for speed, flexibility and efficiency. The principal markets in which Sapiens competes are located in North America, Europe, Israel and Japan. Its solutions include scalable insurance applications that Sapiens have developed for leading organizations such as AXA, Norwich Union, Liverpool Victoria, IAT Group, ING, OneBeacon, Principal Financial Group, the Surplus Line Association of California, Allianz Group, Texas Farm Bureau Insurance Companies, Menora Mivtachim Insurance and Santam.
Sapiens increased its revenues for Q1 2009 by 2% to $10.7 million compared with $10.5 million in Q1 2008. It has also delivered a tenth consecutive quarter of operating profit, which totaled $1.1 million, a 160% increase compared with $0.4 million in Q1 2008. In terms of net profit, Sapiens achieved a third consecutive quarter of net income, reaching $1.0 million compared with a $1.2 million net loss in Q1 2008. In January 2009, Sapiens has repurchased approximately $0.4 million nominal value of its convertible debentures (series A), thus reaching a total repayment to-date of approximately 80% of the total issued series. On the operational side, Sapiens is reporting an increasing interest from existing customers of its "Closed Books" platform. The recent economic climate is driving insurance companies to seek improved ways to manage their risks and still maintain cost-effective policies and Sapiens is well positioned to offer them with its comprehensive INSIGHT suite of insurance solutions. This suite provides a solution for operational excellence, through the "Closed Books" platform, as well as a web-enabled re-insurance solution that streamlines and reduces the cost of handling all reinsurance functions
INNOVATION ARM
During the Reported Period, the subsidiaries of our Innovation arm achieved the following:
Emblaze Mobile is in the last stages of development of the Monolith - next generation mobile handset.
The company's management expects the Monolith to develop such that manufacturing can commence before the end of 2009.
Following successful meetings with operators at the World Mobile Congress, Emblaze Mobile is currently in the process of delivering first samples to operators for their review.
EMOZE has recently partnered with Tulip Telecom, India's largest enterprise communications service provider ("Tulip"), to bring to market a new generation of mobile business communication. As part of this partnership, Tulip will offer its business customers mobile email, calendar and contacts information. EMOZE expect to see revenue share amounts as a result of this partnership during 2009.
During the Reported Period, EMOZE was also chosen by Pelephone, a leading Israeli mobile operator, to provide its new 3G GSM network subscribers with the unique EMOZE portfolio of email and social networking messaging for which EMOZE was paid an upfront set up and license fee. In addition, EMOZE has signed a commercial and deployment contract for its services for an upfront payment of $515,000 with an Asian operator. EMOZE was awarded "Best Mobile Application of the Year - Top Mobile 20" at the 2009 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and is already reaching approximately 2.5 million web hits on average per month and thousands of daily downloads of its new mobile push content software. Research and development achievements include the introduction of additional push email accounts, such as Windows Live and Hotmail, the introduction of social community messaging, Facebook, as an additional account and the introduction of a new website and Enterprise Edition web based management tool.
Emblaze VCON Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of ZONE-IP Ltd. , continues to invest further in the development of its products. The company has dramatically improved the videoconferencing experience of its products by launching the HD7000Pro, a high definition room videoconferencing system. In February 2009, Emblaze VCON announced that it has signed a distribution agreement with Enkay Technologies (India) Pvt. Ltd ("Enkay") for exclusive distribution of its video conferencing range in India. Enkay is a global converged solutions provider that has developed a leading portfolio of products and solutions comprising of Enterprise Telephony, Multimedia & Boardroom, Video conferencing and IT. Enkay has strong partnerships with international companies such as NEC, Sharp, Tandberg and Lifesize and has offices located in major cities such as Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Chennai and Kolkata. In order to retain the exclusivity, Enkay has undertaken to purchase products from Emblaze-VCON to the value of at least $2 million from 1 April 2009 to 31 March 2010 and at least $4 million from 1 April to 31 March 2011.
Enquiries:Hagit Gal, Emblaze Ltd. +972 9 7699302
Harry Chathli, Corfin Communications +44 (0)20 7977 0020
About Emblaze
Emblaze Ltd is a group of technology companies addressing both growth and innovation activities thus combining the stability of "bread and butter" mature technology enterprises with "high-risk / high-reward" investments in innovation.
Our Growth arm includes Formula Systems , which harbors the following subsidiaries: Magic Software Enterprises Ltd. develops, markets and supports composite application development and deployment platforms with a service-oriented architecture (SOA), including application integration and business process management (BPM), with existing and legacy systems; Matrix IT Ltd. (TASE: MTRX) is one of Israel's leading integration and information technology services companies, active in four principal areas: software solutions and services, software products, infrastructure solutions and hardware products, and training and assimilation.; Sapiens International Corporation N.V. is a provider of IT solutions that modernize business processes to enable insurance and other companies to quickly adapt to changes; and nextSource Inc., designs, develops and implements web-based, high quality, innovative human capital management solutions.
Our Innovation arm includes Emblaze Mobile, a designer of advanced mobile devices; EMOZE, a provider of Push Email and synchronisation technology for mobile devices; and ZONE-IP (Emblaze V CON), a provider of wireless video communications technologies and conferencing solutions for operators and enterprise markets over IP networks.
The Emblaze Group is traded on the London Stock Exchange since 1996. www.Emblaze.com
As at 31 March 2009, the Group held 50.8% of Formula's issued share capital
vendorRelated Shares:
BSD.L