GB Group PLC – Half-year Report

GB Group plc (AIM: GBG), the global identity data intelligence specialist, announces its unaudited results for the six months ended 30 September 2019.

 

Financial highlights

 

	2019	(Restated)*2018	Growth
Revenue	£94.3m	£58.3m	62%
Adjusted operating profit†	£21.5m	£9.8m	119%
Adjusted basic earnings per share‡	9.0p	5.9p	53%
Profit after tax	£5.7m	£2.9m	100%
Deferred income balance	£32.8m	£28.2m	16%
Net assets	£337.9m	£157.6m	114%
Net (debt)/cash††	£(53.8)m	£18.6m	n/a

 

 

Organic revenue

	2019	(Restated)* 2018	Total Growth	(Restated)*2018 (CCY)	2019 Organic Revenue Growth (CCY)
Total revenue	£94.3m	£58.3m	62%	£58.6m	17%
Note: “CCY” indicates figure reported on a constant currency basis.

 

^*     The results for H1 in the last financial year have been adjusted in this announcement to be consistent with the refinements made for IFRS 15 in the 2019 Annual Report. The adjustment reflects revenue phasing under IFRS 15. The impact of this adjustment re-aligns revenue in the 6 months to 30 September 2018 only and does not impact the reported results for the full year to 31 March 2019. See note 2 to the interim financial statements for further details.

 

Chris Clark, CEO, commented:

 

“I am pleased with the progress we have made against our strategic objectives in the first six months, which has seen us deliver good growth. This was driven by a strong organic performance (helped in part by the accelerated timing of some contracts for our Fraud division), the successful integrations of our acquisitions and ongoing investment to support our differentiation.

 

We had a strong organic growth performance across each of our three key solutions of Location, Identity and Fraud across our core geographies. This performance has also been supported by the successful integrations of VIX Verify and IDology and we are excited about our future prospects and how these businesses will develop and strengthen our propositions.

 

So far the second half of the year has begun in line with our expectations and we remain confident in meeting full year market consensus.”

 

Operational highlights and outlook

 

Good international progress	·      For the first time, international revenues higher than UK- increasing from 35% to 57% of our total business. ·      Continued growth from new logo wins and existing customers across all focus geographies. ·      Continued recruitment of new business development resource in key markets such as US, Germany and Asia.
Enhanced products & data offering	·      Exclusive partnership with NavInfo Europe to provide address data for mainland China. ·      Expansion of data sets including UK Educational Data and Indian Driving License checks. ·      Improved developer experience with launch of our developer portal, improved APIs and new SDKs.
Acquisitions	·      Good progress with the integration of the two acquisitions made in H2 of last year, VIX Verify and IDology. ·      Both businesses growing well with sales, data and product integration delivering benefits.
People	·      Employee engagement scores have improved further with 91% saying they would recommend GBG as a great place to work. ·      Key hires in our three core regions of Europe, North America and APAC – covering sales, marketing, product & technology – taking our talented team to over 1,000 people.
Positive outlook	·      The full–year outcome for both revenue and profit is expected to be in line with our expectations.

 

Notes:

 

^† Adjusted operating profit means profit before amortisation of acquired intangibles, share-based payments, exceptional items, interest and tax. This measure is not defined under IFRS but Management believe that this Alternative Performance Measure (APM) is a more appropriate metric to understand the underlying performance of the Group. For more details see “Alternative Performance Measures” in the Interim Consolidated Financial Statements.

 

^‡ Adjusted earnings per share is defined as adjusted operating profit less net finance costs and tax divided by the basic weighted average number of ordinary shares of the Company.

 

^†† Net (debt)/cash means cash and short-term deposits less loans (excluding unamortised loan arrangement fees).