09 July 2024
Celebrus Technologies
plc
Final
Results for the year ended 31 March 2024
Strong second half and
further ARR progress
Celebrus Technologies plc (AIM:
CLBS, "the Group", "Celebrus"), the data solutions provider,
announces its final results for the year ended 31 March
2024.
Financial Highlights
·
Annual recurring revenue* (ARR) up 20.9% to £20.2
million (FY23: £16.7 million), and increased as percentage of
Software revenue to 92% (FY23: 89%)
·
Total Revenue up 52.3% to £32.6 million (FY23:
£21.4 million)
·
Software Revenue (excluding third-party hardware)
up 14.7% to £22.0 million (FY23: £19.1 million)
·
Gross profit margin of 52.7% (FY23: 60.2%) due to
a greater proportion of lower margin third party hardware revenue.
Software revenue gross margin of 72.2% (FY23: 68.8%).
·
Adjusted profit before tax** of £6.0 million
(FY23: £3.8 million), and statutory profit before tax of £5.6
million (FY23: £2.4 million)
·
Adjusted diluted EPS of 10.71p (FY23: 7.74p) and
diluted basic EPS of 9.87p (FY23: 5.18p)
·
Proposed final dividend of 2.23p (FY23: 2.15p),
making a total dividend for the year of 3.15p (FY23: 3.03p), an
increase of 4.0%.
·
Year-end cash position of £30.7 million (FY23:
£17.2 million), and normalised cash balance (excluding certain
creditor payments due) of £24.7m. which is expected to normalize
during H1 2025.
Operational Highlights
·
Ongoing investment into innovation of the Celebrus
platform with new features such as Celebrus Digital Analytics, Bot
Detection Machine Learning, and a variety of new digital identity
enhancements.
·
Key wins in the year included new logos in
Healthcare (US), Finance, and Retail combined with some strong
upsells of our existing customer base across the globe.
·
Continued investment into Sales and Marketing,
which has included shifting the Sales team members to focus on
specific verticals in their respective markets and the continued
emphasis on Customer Success and onboarding.
·
Several new partnerships have been established in
both the technology and solution integrator categories to further
our value proposition in the market.
·
Further investments into people development and
employee satisfaction which we continue to monitor via our annual
employee surveys.
·
Completion of the refocus of the Group to a
software sales business, which is now ready for the next stage of
growth, having completed the planned changes across the business to
get us to this point.
Current trading and Outlook
·
The year has started with a growing pipeline and a
good proportion of revenue for the financial year already
contracted.
·
Continued investment into sales and marketing to
drive organic growth whilst also considering acquisition
opportunities.
·
Trading to date is in line with expectations for
FY25.
*
ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) is the amount of revenue currently
contracted at a point in time that is expected to recur within the
next twelve months.
**
Adjusted profit before tax is calculated before amortisation of
intangibles, restructuring costs, acquisition costs, foreign
exchange gains/losses and share based payment
charges.
Bill Bruno, Chief Executive Officer
commented:
"I'm very pleased that this year has been one of tremendous
progress operationally, commercially and strategically. We have
completed the refocus of the group to being a software sales
business while delivering a strong financial performance. We are
now ready for the next stage of growth."
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
investors@celebrus.com
|
Cavendish (Nominated Adviser & Joint
Broker)
Julian Blunt / Edward Whiley,
Corporate Finance
Tim Redfern, Corporate
Broking
|
+44 (0) 20
7220 0500
|
Canaccord Genuity (Joint Broker)
Simon Bridges / Andrew
Potts
|
+44 (0) 20
7523 8000
|
About Celebrus Technologies plc
As a disruptive data technology
platform, Celebrus is focused on improving the relationships
between brands and consumers via better data. Celebrus redefines
what digital identity verification means to power both next-level
marketing and fraud prevention use cases. Deployed across 30+
countries throughout the financial services, healthcare, retail,
travel, and telecommunications sectors, Celebrus automatically
captures, contextualizes, and activates consumer behavioral data in
live-time across all digital channels. Through the addition of
behavioral biometrics and AI, Celebrus empowers brands to detect
and prevent fraud before it occurs. To ensure that brands can begin
to improve those relationships quickly, Celebrus Cloud activates
the Celebrus platform efficiently for brands in a single-tenant,
private cloud capacity.
The Group has offices in the UK,
USA, and India with key talent in all markets to drive the growth
of the business. Celebrus is fully compliant with all major data
privacy regulations and the Group is accredited to ISO27001:
Information Security Management.
For more information, please
see www.celebrus.com .
Chairman's statement
This year has again been one of
continued investment into supporting our growth and scalability,
whilst at the same time increasing our Annual Recuring Revenue and
profitability. This has been achieved despite continued uncertainty
in the economy and financial markets.
We have increased the size of the
customer-facing teams, to support ongoing growth from new customers
and from deepening relationships with existing customers. Our
newly-formed Customer Success team has been instrumental in
ensuring high customer satisfaction whilst also identifying
opportunities for customers to utilise additional features of the
Celebrus platform. This led to several very significant customer
upsells and contract extensions during the year. These successes
have built upon the impact of having a direct sales team which
enables us to have a better understanding of each new customer and
thereby service them more effectively.
We continue to grow our customer base
well beyond banks and financial services, with customer additions
including an online gift experience retailer and a US-based
healthcare group. This demonstrates the broad applicability and
versatility of the platform, and our improved marketing messages
being tailored and evolved to describe the value proposition
clearly for specific verticals.
In product development, the
successful rollout of Celebrus Cloud means that this is now the
primary mode of deployment offered. The success of Celebrus
Cloud results in more efficient and effective onboarding of new
customers. In addition, it allows customers immediate access
to new functionality when it is added during our regular
six-monthly update release cycle.
Our financial metrics in terms of ARR
and adjusted profit before tax have improved, and our financial
strength is bolstered by a healthy cash balance and no
debt.
The Group continues to invest in our
people, and this was manifested by the move into new
state-of-the-art offices in both India and the UK during the year.
This underlines the efforts into making Celebrus a great place to
work for our people, not just in terms of the physical environment
but also via the flexibility and benefits package we have
developed, to ensure a market-competitive position for the Group.
These efforts towards increasing employee satisfaction, validated
in our annual employee survey, also help to ensure we can
effectively scale the business by recruiting and retaining high
calibre talent. I'd like to personally thank our employees for
their excellent work during the year.
Finally, having taken on the role of
Chairman last December, I'd like to thank my predecessor, Peter
Simmonds, for his nine years of contribution to the Group. During
that time the Celebrus platform has gone from being a new
acquisition to becoming the core of the Group's growth. He leaves
the business in a strong position, and we wish him well for the
future.
Outlook
The outlook continues to be positive
with a pipeline of excellent opportunities, and a business which is
scalable and efficient. The Group has a healthy cash balance
to fund necessary investments into growth, both organic and by
acquisition if appropriate, and I'm delighted to report that the
Board is highly confident in the Group's strategy to create
significant shareholder value in the coming years.
CEO
Statement
I'd like to begin this year's
statement by thanking our team, our customers, and our partners for
contributing to what was a successful year for the business. The
past couple of years have been heavily focused on transforming our
business into a software company, and developing the Celebrus
product that was acquired in 2015 into a platform containing a
broad range of apps for a variety of uses. A considerable amount of
effort has gone into our systems, processes, people, and
go-to-market strategies to ensure we can grow the business
efficiently and effectively while driving shareholder value
forward. We put a stamp on those efforts with the name change to
Celebrus Technologies plc. We believe that the business is both
easier to understand and easier to buy from. We will also continue
to simplify our approach, our message, and take stakeholder
feedback into account as we continue to grow.
Our mission statement is quite
simple: to improve the relationships between brands and consumers
via better data. What does "better data" mean to us? It's data that
is complete without having to build a bunch of custom code and
tagging to try and capture it. It's data that solves for digital
identity and can persist that identity in a true patented fashion
across your channels. It's a profile capability that ensures you
can keep a record of all interactions and finally solve for a
single customer view that is so elusive, across all channels and
devices. It's data that is available immediately, in the format you
need it, so that you can focus on using the data instead of
worrying about capturing it. It's data that provides the right
detail to protect consumer money from rampant scams across the
globe. It's data that complies with all local regulations and
provides comfort that you can use the data without violating
consumer trust.
We have continued to innovate our
Celebrus platform with two major releases per year, and our
software is now deployed in over 32 different countries around the
world. In the past year, we have significantly improved our
Business Intelligence features with the launch of Celebrus Digital
Analytics (CDA) and continued to differentiate our Digital Identity
and Customer Profile capabilities. Today, the platform powers over
400 use cases in Marketing, Customer Experience, Fraud, and
Artificial Intelligence via better data. It's best to think of the
platform as the core operating system and we are packaging up
solutions, or applications, that sit on top of the core platform to
deliver value to our customers. Those solutions are sold with
Celebrus Cloud, our single-tenant, private-cloud offering as the
primary deployment model.
Strategically, as we continue to
evaluate our product roadmap, we believe this is an opportune time
to perform some discovery in the market for a potential IP
acquisition that could add some valuable technology and solutions
to our existing Celebrus Platform. We have a healthy cash balance,
no debt, and strong alignment at the Board level on what we are
seeking to acquire. This will not slow down our own roadmap and
investments in the platform, but it is a key part of our current
strategy.
In the market, we are selling
solutions for specific pain points to brands to continue to
optimise and shorten our sales cycles year on year. In the past
couple of years, we have established a direct Sales team, and we
also deployed a Customer Success team to support our land and
expand approach. These changes were a must have for our business as
we looked to drive strong, stable growth in software revenues and
ARR year in and year out with our customer-first mentality. In the
second half of the fiscal year, we took another step forward in our
strategy and aligned the team with vertical expertise focused on
Financial Services, Insurance, Healthcare (US), Retail and Travel
& Hospitality . We also continue to evolve our Pre-Sales team
to strategically support the growth of our existing customer
revenues and the drive for new logos in the market.
Our investments in Sales and
Customer Success are returning positive results, which is promising
as we continue to learn and evolve. Key wins in the year included
new logos in Healthcare (US), Financial Services, and Retail. We
also successfully secured many upsells across our customer base,
which we attribute to our new engagement models and a strong focus
on selling the value of the Celebrus platform for expanded use
cases.
While we have invested in our direct
sales, we have also continued to launch several partner activations
with organisations including Merkle, Salesforce, Braze, Snowflake
and Databricks to name a few. Partners remain a key part of our
strategy, but how we engage with partners has evolved significantly
over the past couple of years. We approach the market together, we
sell together, and as a result we ensure that the Celebrus platform
is being positioned correctly every step of the way. Once we win a
customer's partnership, we stay engaged alongside our partner to
ensure that the customer is happy and growing in their use of the
Celebrus platform. This also then allows the Partners to focus more
on building value around the Celebrus platform since we assist them
during the upsell process in selling it effectively, which
ultimately helps us to scale as we grow.
From a people perspective, we simply
would not be where we are today on our journey without our
employees across the world. We have continued to find ways to
invest in the professional development of our employees, and to
support them both in their business lives and their personal lives.
Moreover, in the second half of the financial year, with good
visibility on revenues, we chose to add some key talent in
commercial and business development roles to prepare for the next
phase of our business strategy execution, and help ensure that
future growth targets can be met.
With a backdrop of increasing risks
globally, we continue to invest and focus on both cyber security
and measurement. We have further improved our monitoring, processes
and technology investments to ensure that we are doing everything
we can to protect our platform, our customers, and their consumers.
We are also ensuring that we can make data-driven decisions across
the entire business to optimise our investments to deliver the best
return to our shareholders.
Strategically, we are now entering a
pivotal year for the business. Having had a successful FY24 and
built the proper foundation for the business to scale with
significant investment into systems and people, we are very excited
about the trajectory we are on and the progress we are making. We
will continue to focus on growing our software revenues, driven by
ARR as a primary metric, through our continued investment into
sales, marketing, and product development while ensuring we can
still generate healthy profits and cash for future
investment.
We have started the new financial
year with a growing pipeline, strong backlog, good momentum,
revenue already committed to the current financial year, and solid
growth in ARR. 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 ongoing investment into the
business resulted in an increased cost base compared to the
previous year. Despite these increased costs, the Group managed to
deliver healthy profits, and we ended the year with a strong
balance sheet and a good cash balance to fund future
growth.
Income statement
Group Revenues for the year were
£32.6 million (FY23: £21.4 million). Software Revenues, comprising
licence revenues, managed services, support and maintenance and
implementation services, were up 14.7% to £22.0 million (FY23:
£19.1 million). Third-party revenues, which are highly variable
year to year, and comprised mostly of low margin revenue from the
sale of hardware as part of certain customers' installations were
£10.7 million (FY23: £2.2 million). The Group regards Software
Revenues as being a more useful and consistent indicator of the
growth of the business.
The gross margin was 52.7% (FY23:
60.2%) due to a higher proportion of low margin hardware revenues.
Excluding hardware revenues and cost of sales, the underlying
Software gross margin was 72.2% (FY23: 68.8%).
Operating expenses rose during the
year to £12.2 million (FY23: £10.8 million) due to ongoing
investment into sales and marketing as well as customer
delivery.
The Group's cash balances were well
managed and generated £0.6 million of interest income.
The adjusted profit before tax was
£6.0 million (FY23: £3.8 million), whilst the unadjusted profit
before tax was £5.6 million (FY23: £2.4 million). The difference
between the adjusted and unadjusted figures is due to a charge for
share-based payments arising from share option grants during the
year of £0.8 million (FY23: £0.9 million), amortisation of
intangible assets of £0.2 million (FY23: £0.2 million) and
partially offset by foreign exchange gains of £0.6 million (FY23:
£0.3 million).
Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) grew
20.9% to £20.2 million (FY23: £16.7 million) and accounted for 92%
(FY23: 89%) of Software Revenues for the year.
The average number of employees
increased slightly during the year to 154 (FY23: 151).
Taxation
The group tax charge was higher at an
effective rate of 27.5% (FY23: 11.5%). This was driven by a higher
tax rate in the United Kingdom of 25% (FY23: 19%), lower
eligibility and super deduction rates for research and development
costs, and losses in the United States which will be carried
forward to reduce the US and Group tax charge in future
years.
Financial position
The balance sheet remains strong with
no debt and a cash balance at the year-end of £30.7 million (FY23:
£17.2 million). The year end cash balance is unusually high due to
the timing of working capital movements. The Group had amounts of
approximately £6.0 million due for payment in the first quarter of
FY25 relating to the purchase of hardware for customers and other
non-repeating payments, meaning that the "normalised" cash balance
at 31 March 2024 was in the region of £24.7 million.
The Goodwill balance of £9.4 million
(FY23: £9.4 million) is comprised of goodwill from the acquisition
of Celebrus in 2015, and the acquisition of Prickly Cactus during
2021. The Other intangible assets balance of £0.9 million (FY23:
£0.8 million) is comprised of purchased IPR, trade names and
capitalised development costs. The Group expenses the majority of
its R&D costs and capitalised just £0.3 million in the year
(FY23: £0.2 million) which met the criteria of development costs
under IAS38. The amortisation related to non- acquisition related
goodwill amounted to £0.2 million (FY23: £0.3 million).
Property, plant and equipment
increased to £1.7 million (FY23: £0.6 million). Whilst the capital
expenditure of the Group is generally low, during the year the
Group entered into new leases on two office properties in the UK
and India. An investment of £0.6 million was made into leasehold
improvements relating to these two new leasehold offices. The
right-of-use assets created totaled £1.0 million with a further
£0.4 million comprised of fixtures and fittings relating to the new
offices. The freehold property remains as an asset held for sale at
£3.0 million (FY23: £3.0 million) and the Group is currently in
negotiations for its sale.
Trade debtors were £5.9 million
(FY23: £4.9 million) and of that amount, £5.4 million had been
received by the end of June. By the nature of the Group's customer
base being large typically multinational businesses, credit risk is
not a major risk for the Group and bad debt write-offs during the
year were nil (FY23: nil).
Trade creditors increased to £2.0
million (FY23: £0.6 million), whilst accruals increased to £5.9
million (FY23: £1.2 million), relating to the hardware inventory
held at the year end which shipped to the customer in early April.
The Group seeks to pay all suppliers within terms and the supplier
payment days at the year-end were 26 days (FY23: 14 days). Deferred
revenue arising from billings made to customers ahead of revenue
being recognised increased to £17.8 million (FY23: £9.4 million)
due to a number of customer renewals and extensions which were
billed during the year.
Cash flow and funds
The Group generated net cash from
operating activities of £16.6 million (FY23: net cash generated of
£13.7 million) with £6.1 million coming from operating cash flows,
and £10.0 million coming from positive working capital movements
largely due to customers paying in advance for their goods and
services.
Financing activities in the year were
£2.4 million (FY23: £7.8 million) comprised mainly of normal
dividends paid of £1.2 million (FY23: £1.2 million), and a net
purchase of own shares of £1.0 million (FY23: £1.5 million). The
share purchase program is a limited program intended to negate the
dilutive impact of annual share option grants. No special dividend
was paid in the year (FY23: £5.0 million).
Investing activities resulted in an
outflow of £0.2 million (FY23: outflow of £0.1 million). With
higher interest rates and a healthy cash balance, net interest
income was £590,000 (FY23: £337,000), set off principally against
capitalisation of development costs of £315,000 (FY23:
£247,000).
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 as appropriate, but also to counter any concerns about
vendor risk from our customers, who are typically large
multinational businesses.
Annual Recurring Revenue
We define ARR as the annual amount of
recurring revenue contracted with a customer, at a given point in
time. As a recognised driver of shareholder value in software
businesses we use this as one of our primary metrics.
Group ARR grew by £3.5 million to
£20.2 million (FY23: £16.7 million) during the year. The current
ARR is comprised of Licences of £12.6 million (FY23: £9.1 million)
and Celebrus Cloud, Support and Maintenance of £7.6 million (FY23:
£7.6 million). Of the growth of £3.5 million during the year,
£3.8 million is from net contract wins with a £0.3 million loss
arising from exchange rate movements due to a large proportion of
Group contracts being in US Dollars.
Earnings per share
Basic EPS for the year was 10.15p
(FY23: 5.29p) and diluted basic EPS was 9.87p (FY23: 5.18p). The
basic figure has been calculated using the weighted average number
of shares in issue being 39,781,184 (FY23: 40,004,526) and the
diluted figure using 40,899,072 (FY23: 40,830,043).
Adjusted basic EPS was 11.01p (FY23:
7.90p) and adjusted diluted EPS was 10.71p (FY23: 7.74p) following
adjustments for amortisation, share-based payments, exceptional
items, foreign exchange expenses and tax on these
adjustments.
Dividend
During the year, the Company paid
ordinary dividends of £1.2 million (FY23: £1.2 million). No special
dividend was paid during the year (FY23: 12.5p per
share).
The Board is today proposing a final
dividend, subject to shareholder approval at the 2024 AGM, of 2.23p
per share (FY23: 2.15p), which along with the interim dividend of
0.92p per share (FY23: 0.88p) paid in January 2024 brings the full
year dividend to 3.15p per share (FY23: 3.03p), an increase of
4.0%. The final dividend is expected to be paid on 16 August 2024
to shareholders on the register as at the close of business on 19
July 2024.
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 2024, 520,817 shares had
been acquired at an average price of 200.3p and following the issue
of 193,087 treasury shares to satisfy share option exercise this
brought the number of shares held in Treasury to 936,495 (FY23:
608,765).
Equity
At the year end, the Group had £29.5
million (FY23: £27.3 million) attributable to the shareholders of
the Company. The increase in the year was principally made up of
retained earnings in the year of £4.0 million (FY23: £2.1 million)
set off against dividends paid during the year of £1.2 million
(FY23: £6.2 million), share buybacks of £1.0 million (FY23: £1.5
million) with the balance of £0.7 million (FY23: £0.9 million)
attributable to share -based payments.
Foreign currency impact and change in reporting
currency
The Group's tightened policies and
management of foreign currency risk resulted in a foreign currency
gain of £0.6 million (FY23: £0.3 million).
The Group has historically reported
its results in Sterling. With the majority of the Group's revenues
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 would give rise to increased foreign exchange risk
needing to be managed through hedging contracts. Therefore, the
Board has decided to convert to reporting results in US Dollars
from the year commencing 1 April 2024. This will reduce the risk of
foreign exchange losses and also better reflect the focus of the
Group on large global customers who typically prefer to contract in
US Dollars.
There will be no change in the
Group's dividend policy, and dividends will continue to be declared
in GBP. Following the change in the Group's presentational currency
with effect from 1 April 2024, the Group's interim results for the
six-month period ended 30 September 2024, and all subsequent
financial information, will be prepared using US dollars as the
presentational currency. Comparative information will also be
provided in US dollars as required by the relevant Accounting
Standards.
Consolidated income statement for the year ended 31 March
2024
|
|
|
Note
|
2024
|
|
2023
|
|
|
|
|
£'000
|
|
£'000
|
Continuing operations
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Revenue
|
|
3
|
32,639
|
|
21,369
|
|
Cost of sales
|
|
|
(15,432)
|
|
(8,497)
|
Gross Profit
|
|
|
|
17,207
|
|
12,872
|
|
Administration expenses
|
|
|
(12,218)
|
|
(10,833)
|
|
Other operating income
|
|
|
-
|
|
15
|
Profit from operations
|
|
|
4,989
|
|
2,054
|
|
Finance income32.639
|
|
|
607
|
|
373
|
|
Financing costs
|
|
|
(17)
|
|
(36)
|
Profit before tax
|
|
4
|
5,579
|
|
2,391
|
|
Tax
|
|
|
(1,541)
|
|
(274)
|
Attributable to equity holders of the parent
|
|
4,038
|
|
2,117
|
Earnings per share from continuing operations attributable to
the equity holders of the parent
Statutory
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Basic
|
|
5
|
10.15
|
|
5.29p
|
|
Diluted
|
|
5
|
9.87p
|
|
5.18p
|
Consolidated statement of comprehensive income for the year
ended 31 March 2024
|
|
|
|
2024
|
|
2023
|
|
|
|
|
£'000
|
|
£'000
|
Attributable to equity holders of the parent
|
|
4,038
|
|
2,117
|
Other comprehensive income:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Items that will not be reclassified to profit or
loss
|
|
|
|
|
Gains on property
revaluation
|
|
-
|
|
(300)
|
Exchange differences on translation
of foreign operations
|
(317)
|
|
204
|
Total comprehensive income for the year
attributable
|
|
|
|
to
equity holders of the parent
|
|
|
3,721
|
|
2,021
|
Consolidated statement of changes in equity attributable to
Equity Holders of the Parent for the year ended 31 March
2024
|
Share
capital
|
Share
premium
|
Merger
reserve
|
Revaluation
reserve
|
Treasury
shares
|
Retained
earnings
|
Total
|
|
£'000
|
£'000
|
£'000
|
£'000
|
£'000
|
£'000
|
£'000
|
Balance at 1 April 2022
|
808
|
3,365
|
5,981
|
1,240
|
(542)
|
20,034
|
30,886
|
Dividends paid
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
(6,194)
|
(6,194)
|
Purchase of own shares
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
(1,488)
|
-
|
(1,488)
|
Settlement of share-based
payments
|
-
|
-
|
250
|
-
|
694
|
(679)
|
265
|
Share-based payment charge
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
856
|
856
|
Transactions with equity holders
|
-
|
-
|
250
|
-
|
(794)
|
(6,017)
|
(6,561)
|
Profit for the year
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
2,117
|
2,117
|
Other comprehensive income
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
(300)
|
-
|
204
|
(96)
|
Total comprehensive income
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
(300)
|
-
|
2,321
|
2.021
|
Balance at 1 April 2023
|
809
|
3,365
|
6,281
|
1,010
|
(1,464)
|
17,344
|
27,345
|
Dividends paid
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
(1,221)
|
(1,221)
|
Purchase of own shares
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
(1,042)
|
-
|
(1,042)
|
Settlement of share-based
payments
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
452
|
(450)
|
2
|
Share-based payment charge
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
699
|
699
|
Transactions with equity holders
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
(590)
|
(972)
|
(1,562)
|
Profit for the year
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
4,038
|
4,038
|
Other comprehensive income
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
(317)
|
(317)
|
Total comprehensive income
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
3,721
|
3,721
|
Balance at 31 March 2024
|
809
|
3,365
|
6,281
|
1,010
|
(2,054)
|
20,093
|
29,504
|
Consolidated statement of financial position as at 31 March
2024
|
|
|
Note
|
2024
|
|
2023
|
|
|
|
|
|
£'000
|
|
£'000
|
|
Non-current assets
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Goodwill
|
|
|
9,446
|
|
9,446
|
|
|
Other intangible assets
|
|
|
977
|
|
806
|
|
|
Property, plant and
equipment
|
|
1,662
|
|
607
|
|
|
Trade and other
receivables
|
7
|
233
|
|
942
|
|
|
Deferred tax assets
|
|
|
240
|
|
212
|
|
|
|
|
|
12,558
|
|
12,013
|
|
Current assets
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Inventories
|
|
3,691
|
|
-
|
|
|
|
Trade and other
receivables
|
7
|
8,682
|
|
7,561
|
|
|
|
Tax receivables
|
|
|
91
|
|
15
|
|
|
Cash and cash equivalents
|
|
|
30,720
|
|
17,155
|
|
|
|
|
|
43,184
|
|
24,731
|
|
Assets in disposal groups classified
as held for sale
|
|
|
3,000
|
|
3,000
|
|
Total assets
|
|
|
58,742
|
|
39,744
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Current liabilities
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Trade and other payables
|
|
8
|
(8,531)
|
|
(2,219)
|
|
|
Tax liabilities
|
|
|
(1,483)
|
|
(8)
|
|
|
Deferred income
|
|
|
(17,637)
|
|
(9,383)
|
|
|
Lease obligations
|
|
|
(201)
|
|
(73)
|
|
|
|
|
|
(27,852)
|
|
(11,683)
|
|
Non-current liabilities
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Lease obligations
|
|
|
(875)
|
|
(148)
|
|
|
Deferred income
|
|
|
(79)
|
|
(173)
|
|
|
Deferred tax liabilities
|
|
|
(432)
|
|
(395)
|
|
|
|
|
|
(1,386)
|
|
(716)
|
|
Total liabilities
|
|
|
(29,238)
|
|
(12,399)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Net
assets
|
|
|
29,504
|
|
27,345
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Equity
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Share capital
|
|
|
809
|
|
809
|
|
|
Share premium account
|
|
|
3,365
|
|
3,365
|
|
|
Merger reserve
|
|
|
6,281
|
|
6,281
|
|
|
Revaluation reserve
|
|
|
1,010
|
|
1,010
|
|
|
Own shares
|
|
|
(2,054)
|
|
(1,464)
|
|
|
Retained earnings
|
|
|
20,093
|
|
17,344
|
|
Attributable to equity
holders of the parent
|
29,504
|
|
27,345
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Consolidated cash flow statement for the year ended 31 March
2024
|
|
|
2024
|
|
2023
|
|
|
|
|
£'000
|
|
£'000
|
|
Operating activities
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Profit before tax
|
|
5,579
|
|
2,391
|
|
Adjustments for:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Depreciation of property, plant and
equipment
|
292
|
|
265
|
|
|
Amortisation of intangible
assets
|
|
164
|
|
346
|
|
|
Finance income
|
|
(607)
|
|
(373)
|
|
|
Finance expense
|
|
17
|
|
36
|
|
|
Share-based payments
|
|
699
|
|
856
|
|
|
(Gain) / loss on sale of property,
plant and equipment
|
(16)
|
|
13
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Operating cash flows before movements in working
capital
|
6,128
|
|
3,534
|
|
|
(Increase) / decrease in
receivables
|
|
(412)
|
|
18,882
|
|
|
(Increase) in inventories
|
|
(3,691)
|
|
-
|
|
|
Increase / (decrease) in
payables
|
|
14,084
|
|
(9,184)
|
|
Cash
generated from operations
|
|
16,109
|
|
13,232
|
|
|
Taxes received
|
|
-
|
|
472
|
|
Net
cash generated from operating activities
|
|
16,109
|
|
13,704
|
|
Investing activities
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Interest received
|
|
607
|
|
373
|
|
|
Purchase of property, plant and
equipment
|
|
(435)
|
|
(173)
|
|
|
Purchase of intangible fixed
assets
|
(21)
|
|
(97)
|
|
|
Capitalisation of development
costs
|
|
(315)
|
|
(247)
|
|
Net
cash used in investing activities
|
|
(164)
|
|
(144)
|
|
Financing activities
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dividends paid
|
|
(1,221)
|
|
(6,194)
|
|
|
Lease repayments
|
|
(104)
|
|
(102)
|
|
|
Interest paid
|
|
(17)
|
|
(36)
|
|
|
Purchase of own shares
|
|
(1,042)
|
|
(1,488)
|
|
|
Exercise of share options
|
|
4
|
|
(15)
|
|
Net
cash used in financing activities
|
|
(2,380)
|
|
(7,835)
|
|
Net
increase in cash and cash equivalents
|
|
13,565
|
|
5,725
|
|
|
Cash and cash equivalents at start of
year
|
|
17,155
|
|
11,430
|
|
Cash
and cash equivalents at end of year
|
|
30,720
|
|
17,155
|
|
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 financial statements have been
prepared under the historical cost convention, with the exception
of land and buildings which are held at valuation.
The presentation and functional
currency of the financial statements is British Pounds and amounts
are rounded to the nearest thousand pounds.
The financial information contained
in this announcement does not constitute the Group's statutory
accounts for the year ended 31 March 2024 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 2024
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.
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 2025
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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
2024
|
|
2023
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
£'000
|
|
£'000
|
|
Licenses
|
|
|
|
11,983
|
|
8,198
|
|
Celebrus Cloud Hosting, support and
maintenance
|
7,545
|
|
7,771
|
|
Services
|
|
|
|
2,433
|
|
3,173
|
|
Software revenues
|
|
|
21,961
|
|
19,142
|
|
Third party products
|
|
|
10,678
|
|
2,227
|
|
Revenue
|
|
|
|
32,639
|
|
21,369
|
Major customers (partners) over 10%
of revenue
|
2024
|
2023
|
|
|
|
|
£'000
|
£'000
|
£'000
|
£'000
|
|
|
|
|
|
Customer
1
|
Customer
2
|
Customer
1
|
Customer
2
|
|
|
Licenses
|
|
6,180
|
2,072
|
2,061
|
4,444
|
|
|
Celebrus Cloud Hosting, support and
maintenance
|
|
3,973
|
694
|
3,583
|
1,110
|
|
|
Services
|
|
1,010
|
76
|
30
|
-
|
|
|
Software revenues
|
11,163
|
2,842
|
5,674
|
5,554
|
|
Third party products
|
10,447
|
-
|
2,227
|
-
|
|
Revenue
|
|
21,610
|
2,842
|
7,901
|
5,554
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Geographical information
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Group
|
|
|
|
|
2024
|
|
2023
|
|
|
|
|
£'000
|
|
£'000
|
|
United States of America
|
|
25,454
|
|
11,055
|
|
United Kingdom
|
|
4,308
|
|
3,800
|
|
Rest of Europe
|
|
2,569
|
|
3,745
|
|
Others
|
|
|
308
|
|
2,769
|
|
|
|
|
32,639
|
|
21,369
|
The geographical revenue analysis is
determined by the domicile of the customer.
4.
Adjusted profit before
tax
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2024
£'000
|
|
2023
£'000
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
£'000
|
|
£'000
|
|
|
Profit before tax
|
|
5,579
|
|
2,391
|
|
|
|
Amortisation of intangible
assets
|
|
164
|
|
346
|
|
|
|
Share-based payments
|
|
766
|
|
856
|
|
|
|
Net foreign exchange
differences
|
(573)
|
|
(330)
|
|
|
|
Restructuring costs
|
98
|
|
513
|
|
|
|
Adjusted profit before tax
|
|
6,034
|
|
3,776
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
5 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:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2024
|
|
2023
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
£'000
|
|
£'000
|
|
Profit attributable to owners of the
parent
|
|
4,038
|
|
2,117
|
|
Amortisation of intangible
assets
|
164
|
|
346
|
|
|
Share-based payment
|
|
766
|
|
856
|
|
Net foreign exchange
differences
|
|
(573)
|
|
(330)
|
|
Restructuring costs
|
|
|
|
98
|
|
513
|
|
Tax on the adjustments
|
|
|
(113)
|
|
(340)
|
|
Adjusted profit attributable to
owners of the parent
|
4,380
|
|
3,162
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2024
No.
|
|
2023
No.
|
|
Basic weighted average number of
shares, excluding own shares, in issue
|
39,781,184
|
|
40,004,526
|
|
Dilutive effect of share
options
|
|
|
1,117,888
|
|
825,517
|
|
Diluted weighted average number of
shares, excluding own shares, in issue
|
40,899,072
|
|
40,830,043
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2024
|
|
2023
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Pence
per share
|
|
Pence
per
share
|
|
Basic Earnings per share
|
|
|
10.15
|
|
5.29
|
|
Diluted Earnings per share
|
|
|
9.87
|
|
5.18
|
|
Adjusted Basic Earnings per
share
|
|
11.01
|
|
7.90
|
|
Adjusted Diluted Earnings per
share
|
|
10.71
|
|
7.74
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
6.
Dividends
|
|
|
|
|
|
2024
|
|
2023
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
£'000
|
|
£'000
|
Amounts recognised as distributions
to equity holders
|
|
|
|
|
|
Final dividend for the year ended 31
March 2023 of 2.15p (for the year ended 31 March 2022: 2.07p) per
share
|
856
|
|
831
|
|
Special dividend for the year ended
31 March 2023 of nil p (31 March 2022: 12.5p) per share
|
-
|
|
5,012
|
|
Interim dividend for the year ended
31 March 2024 of 0.92p (31 March 2023: 0.88p) per share
|
365
|
|
351
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1,221
|
|
6,194
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
The proposed final dividend for the
year ended 31 March 2024 of 2.23p 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 16 August 2024 to shareholders on the register as at the
close of business on 19 July 2024.
7.
Trade and other
receivables
Non-current
|
|
|
2024
|
2023
|
|
|
|
£'000
|
£'000
|
Prepayments
|
|
|
233
|
181
|
Accrued Income
|
|
|
-
|
761
|
|
|
|
233
|
942
|
Current
|
|
|
2024
|
2023
|
|
|
|
£'000
|
£'000
|
Trade receivables
|
|
|
5,917
|
4,967
|
Other debtors
|
|
|
68
|
45
|
Prepayments
|
|
|
1,627
|
1,295
|
Accrued Income
|
|
|
1,070
|
1,254
|
|
|
|
8,682
|
7,561
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ageing of receivables
|
|
|
2024
|
2023
|
|
|
|
£'000
|
£'000
|
Less than 30 days |
|
|
1,257
|
1,211
|
31 to 60 days
|
|
|
4,412
|
3,693
|
61 to 90 days
|
|
|
124
|
-
|
91 to 120 days
|
|
|
4
|
63
|
More than 120 days
|
|
|
120
|
-
|
|
|
|
5,917
|
4,967
|
An amount of £5.4 million of the £5.9
million of trade receivables had been received as at 30 June
2024.
The average credit period taken on
sales of goods and services was 79 days (FY23: 108
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.
8.
Trade and other
payables
|
|
|
2024
|
2023
|
|
|
|
£'000
|
£'000
|
Trade payables
|
|
|
2,049
|
585
|
Other taxes and social
security
|
|
|
265
|
382
|
Other creditors
|
|
|
270
|
76
|
Accruals
|
|
|
5,947
|
1,176
|
|
|
|
8,531
|
2,219
|
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 (FY23: 14 days).
Their carrying value approximates to their fair value.
9.
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
10.
Annual Report and Accounts and Notice of AGM
The 2024 Annual Report and Accounts
will be available on the company's website https://investors.celebrus.com/
later today, 9 July 2024. 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.
11.
Annual General
Meeting
The 2024 Annual General Meeting of
the Company will be held at 9am BST on Thursday 8 August 2024 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