7 February 2025
Ingenta plc
("Ingenta" or the "Company")
Trading
Update
Ingenta plc (AIM: ING), a leading
provider of software and services to the publishing and media
industries, provides the following trading update for the year
ended 31 December 2024 ("FY24").
In line with previous guidance, the
Group expects to report revenues for FY24 of £10.2m (2023: £10.8m)
and EBITDA of £1.8m (2023: £2.2m). The Group generated
substantially improved positive cash flow during FY24 of £0.9m
(2023: £0.3m), providing closing cash balances at 31 December 2024
of £3.6m. The Group has no debt.
The Board expects to recommend the
payment of an unchanged final dividend for the year of 2.6 pence
per share, taking the dividend for the year to a total of 4.1
pence.
During 2024, the Group's focus
remained on implementing new projects based on new generation
software platforms to offset the anticipated reduction in revenues
from certain legacy services. As announced in September 2024, the
Company experienced delays in implementing a number of these new
projects and therefore did not fully offset the effects of legacy
revenue reductions within FY24.
The Company is prioritising
acceleration of new business acquisition to offset the expected
larger scale reduction in revenues from legacy platforms in the
current year and beyond and return the Company to growth in
revenues and profits.
The momentum of new business wins is
already accelerating: the Board is pleased to report four
substantial new contracts won since the year end, with aggregate
contract values of £1.9m over 2-5 years, broadly spread across the
Edify, IngentaConnect and Commercial platforms. This equates to the
total amount of new business won in the first half of 2024 and
underpins management's confidence that the Group will resume growth
in top line revenues in 2025.
In order to continue the Group's
overall growth momentum beyond 2025, the Board has sanctioned a
£0.5m investment in the Group's sales and marketing activities
during 2025 in order to build a larger and longer term pipeline of
new business. As a result of this investment, the Board expects
that EBITDA for 2025 is likely to be lower than in 2024, despite
the expectation of increased revenues referred to above.
Subject to trading remaining in line
with expectations, the Board intends to retain the level of
dividends for 2025 at the current level of 4.1p per share for the
year.
Scott Winner, CEO of Ingenta, commented:
"I
am pleased to report that we have won substantial new business in
2024, broadly based across all the Group's current platform
offerings, and it is disappointing that delays in implementing
these new services due to customer-induced delays have resulted in
this impacting on the overall results for the year. The rate of new
business wins has accelerated since the year end with four new
clients, and an aggregate of £1.9m contract values, already in
2025, which provides us with a firm foundation on which to invest
further in our sales and marketing resources.
Looking ahead to the longer term, this new investment will
further reduce our reliance on revenues and profits from legacy
platforms and aim to ensure that the transition of long-standing
customers away from higher-value legacy products will be more than
offset by increasing new business from our current and next
generation offerings. Although this will impact on profits in 2025,
it is an investment in the future which we expect to bear fruit in
accelerating growth in future years."
Certain information contained in
this announcement would have been deemed inside information as
stipulated under the UK version of the EU Market Abuse Regulation
(2014/596) which is part of UK law by virtue of the European Union
(Withdrawal) Act 2018, as amended and supplemented from time to
time, until the release of this announcement.
For further information please
contact:
Ingenta
plc
Tel: 01865 397 800
Scott Winner/Jon
Sheffield
Cavendish Capital Markets
Limited
Tel: 0207 220 0500
Katy Birkin / Callum
Davidson
