26th Jan 2011 07:00
For Release at 07.00
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
STATPRO GROUP PLC
("StatPro", "the Company" or "the Group")
Year end trading update
Notice of results
StatPro Group plc, (AIM:SOG), the AIM listed provider of portfolio analysis and asset pricing services for the global asset management industry, today announces a trading update for the year ended 31 December 2010.
Year end trading update
The Board is pleased to confirm that trading for the year ended 31 December 2010 was in line with market expectations, delivering good levels of profit and growing revenue. We continue to enjoy a high level of recurring revenue with approximately 93% (2009: 93%) of revenue deriving from automatically recurring contracts. Continued strong sales of StatPro Seven have helped to generate a solid profit margin while increasing investment in StatPro Revolution. Strong operating cash flow has enabled the Company to reduce Group net debt to £5.5 million (2009: £8.9 million) and fund an increase in dividends.
During the course of 2010 we added 44 new client contracts to the StatPro Seven service with new sales coming from all regions. We now have approximately 30% of our software clients (by value) on a Software as a Service ("SaaS") basis, increasing from 20% this time last year, and there is a clear pipeline of clients preparing to convert during 2011.
StatPro Revolution
The key event of 2010 for the Group was the launch of the beta version of StatPro Revolution. StatPro Revolution is a multi-tenant, pure internet-based service which offers sophisticated portfolio analytics and reporting functionality at a competitive price. Since its launch in July 2010, over 250 companies have signed up for a beta trial of the service. The profiles of these companies vary widely from small to large companies, with a broad geographical spread. The official launch of the StatPro Revolution service is planned for Q1 2011.
As previously announced, we are currently integrating StatPro Revolution with the service platform of a global custodian bank. This service is expected to go live during Q2 of 2011. We are actively pursuing a number of similar opportunities with other custodian banks, market data vendors and software suppliers.
We have demonstrated the service extensively to prospective customers in Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Australia and the initial response has been extremely encouraging. The Board believes in the potential of StatPro Revolution and wants to transform the business into a pure SaaS provider. To that end, the Board has approved an additional £2.0 million investment for development, support infrastructure and marketing in this area during the course of 2011, in addition to the previously announced £2.0 million in 2010.
In order to re-focus StatPro more on this new service, the Board has reorganised some non-core parts of the business in the course of 2010. The resulting exceptional charge will be around £1.2 million in total, although part of this will fall into 2011. This exceptional charge in 2010 will be offset in part by the exceptional gain of £0.5 million on the disposal of the JSE software in January 2010.
SiSoft - Minority interest
As previously announced, we exercised our option to acquire the minority interest in SiSoft in June 2010 for an estimated deferred consideration of approximately £1.3 million and our estimate has not changed, but as the vendors are disputing certain aspects of the valuation, the process has not been completed in 2010 as expected. We will provide a further update on the situation at the time of our preliminary announcement or on the completion of the acquisition.
Outlook
Building on a solid sales performance in 2010 and with the commercial launch of StatPro Revolution in 2011, the Board is confident of achieving a good result in 2011. We will provide an update on the outlook for trading in 2011 with our preliminary results in March 2011.
Justin Wheatley, Chief Executive, commented: "The Board is pleased with the Group's progress in 2010. We believe that StatPro Revolution is currently the only internet service of its kind in the market with this level of sophisticated portfolio analytics. Priced at just $100 per portfolio per month, it is affordable for any financial services company to use anywhere in the world. This means we can target a significantly larger market than our current target market. This combined with the early successes we have had with StatPro Revolution, has prompted the Board to increase the level of spending on marketing and development during 2011. With our high levels of recurring revenue, our strong levels of cash generation and a unique product set, we continue to believe the long-term opportunities for StatPro are significant."
Notice of results
The Company expects to report its preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2010 on Wednesday, 23 March 2011.
For further information, please contact:
StatPro Group plc | www.statpro.com | |
Justin Wheatley, Chief Executive | 020 8410 9876 | |
Andrew Fabian, Finance Director |
Cenkos Securities | ||
Ken Fleming | 0131 220 6939 | |
Jon Fitzpatrick | 0207 397 8900 | |
Julian Morse | 020 7397 1931 | |
Threadneedle Communications | ||
Caroline Evans-Jones/ Tom Moriarty/ Hilary Millar | 020 7653 9850 |
About StatPro
StatPro is a leading provider of portfolio analytics and data solutions for the global asset management industry. The Company sells a SaaS-based Analytics and Data platform on a rental basis to investment management companies allowing them to analyse portfolio performance, attribution, risk and GIPS® compliance. StatPro also provides market data and valuation feeds including a Complex Asset Pricing service.
StatPro has grown its recurring revenue from less than £1 million in 1999 to £28 million at end June 2010 and currently enjoys a renewal rate of approximately 90%. StatPro floated on the London Stock Exchange in May 2000 and transferred its listing in June 2003 to AIM. The Company has operations in Europe, North America, South Africa and Australia, with approximately 79% of recurring revenues being generated outside the UK.
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