Full year results 2024

Eckoh plc

(“Eckoh”, or the “Group”)

Full year audited results for year ended 31 March 2024

- Record new contracted business in North America, up 44% year-on-year to $16.8m
- Record year of total contracted business at £52.6m driven by high renewals and strong H2 new business wins
- Strong progress with cloud transition and new cloud contracts, driving ARR, cost efficiency and margin enhancement
- New regulatory standards, hybrid working and new commercial strategy driving record sales pipeline

Eckoh plc (AIM: ECK), the global provider of Customer Engagement Data Security Solutions, is pleased to announce its full year audited results for the year ended 31 March 2024.

Nik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer, said: "This was in many ways a milestone year for Eckoh, with record levels of contracts won, a record level of new business secured in North America and a record level of client renewals. It was also the first year when all new contracts won were for cloud deployments, illustrating the pace at which our cloud transition is proceeding, and whilst this has tempered our headline revenue growth it continues to improve our revenue visibility and margin. It’s testament to the quality, performance and hard work of our team that this strategic progress has been made.

The first half of the year was all about excellent contract renewals, but the second half was all about new business wins, and we have built a strong sales pipeline of exciting new business opportunities, supported by the impact that the new PCI standard is having as well as the significant risk of operating work from home agents without security measures.

The strategic decision at the beginning of the year to create a single commercial team focused on North America has delivered early success, with the record level of new business and the number of long multi-year contract renewals, which gives us excellent revenue visibility and improves our ability to further increase our strong cross-sell and upsell pipeline. We expect further progress with this strategy in FY25, as we continue to implement the plans to unlock the value in our largest accounts and as we leverage our cloud platforms and enhanced product set.

We are excited by the positive trends in the business and we are confident that Eckoh will continue to strengthen our market-leading position by assisting enterprises with the growing challenges that they are facing globally to maintain regulatory compliance and keep their customers' data and engagements secure."

Financial Highlights

• Record level of total contracted business⁶ at £52.6m, up 52% (FY23: £34.5m), driven by strong multi-year renewals and strong new contracted business in H2. New contracted business increased by 29% to £18.7m (FY23: £14.4m)
• Record new business contracted in North America for Security Solutions, up 44% to $16.8m (FY23: $11.3m)
• Group ARR¹ £30.8 million, up 1% year-on-year or 3% at constant currency
• North America Security Solutions ARR¹ up 6% to $16.8m (FY23: $15.9m), which represents a CAGR of 27% since FY21, and with the new business contracted in H2 but not yet live this represents a further 14% of growth
• Group revenue £37.2m (FY23: £38.8m), down 4% largely because of the timing of the new business wins and the ongoing transition of clients to the cloud, which removes one-off hardware fees and reduces set up costs
• Gross profit margin 83% (FY23: 80%), an increase of 290bp
• Adjusted operating profit⁴ up 8% to £8.3m (FY23: £7.7m), this includes a £0.1m FX loss versus a FX gain of £0.5m in FY23, so a 17% increase year-on-year pre-forex
• Continued improvement of adjusted operating profit margin driven by the cloud transition and operational efficiency, increasing by 250 bp to 22.4% (FY23: 19.9%)
• Group recurring revenue² increased to 84% (FY23: 80%), reflecting strong renewals and the cloud transition
• Recurring revenue in North America increased to 82% (FY23: 76%) and to 86% (FY23: 83%) for UK & ROW
• Strong cash generation with net cash position ahead of market expectations at £8.3m (FY23: £5.7m), up £2.6m
• Eckoh’s balance sheet remains robust, with no debt or drawdown on credit facilities
• Proposed final dividend of 0.82p per share (FY23: 0.74p), demonstrating the Board’s confidence in the significant growth opportunity

Strategic highlights

• Our drive to transition clients to a cloud-based SaaS solution model continues successfully:
  • Delivering cost efficiencies, improving operating margins and quality of earnings
  • Group ARR now represents 83% of Group revenue, a 5% increase on the prior year (FY23: 78%)
  • 100% of all new client wins were for cloud deployment (first ever cloud deal was in FY20)
  • Positive reception from new and existing clients to the expanded Secure Engagement Suite, with new clients contracting for multi-products alongside successful upsells and cross-sells to our existing clients
• New global commercial strategy focusing on the North American addressable market is delivering clear benefits:
  • Record North American new business up 44%, with several key deals closed in H2
  • Record North America pipeline includes several contracts where Eckoh is selected vendor, but longer than expected sales and contracting cycles are delaying completion and therefore revenue
  • Record level of client renewals include a majority of multi-year renewals, enabling future expansion
• Notable new business wins include:
  • 5-year contract with a US travel technology company that has multiple global online brands
  • 5-year healthcare contract with a leading US homecare business
  • 3-year contract with a Fortune 500 office supplies retailer
  • 3-year contract with a UK-based media and telecoms company deploying into Amazon Connect
• The new PCI DSS v4.0 regulation, which was effective from April 2024, has increased complexity and cost of compliance for merchants and we are already seeing tangible signs of the impact the standard is having

Current trading and Outlook

• The Board is confident of progress in the year ahead and the following underpins the expected growth in FY25:
  • Eckoh is optimally positioned as market leader for an increased outsourcing trend driven by ongoing regulatory change (PCI DSS v4.0), hybrid working and growing security challenges for companies
  • We expect new business coming from our existing clients to grow significantly with the enhanced product set and the increasing interest in AI bots for contact centres provides a further opportunity for growth
  • The business continues to benefit from the transition to a SaaS business model and cloud deployment with further operating efficiencies and profit margin improvements expected
• Overall, a positive start to the year with £8m+ of total contracted business signed year to date

1. ARR is the annual recurring revenue of all contracts billing and contractually committed at the end of the period.

2. Included within ARR is all revenue that is contractually committed and an element of UK&ROW revenue that has proven to be repeatable, but not contractually committed.

3. Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) is the profit before tax adjusted for depreciation of owned and leased assets, amortisation of intangible assets, expenses relating to share option schemes and exceptional items.

4. Adjusted operating profit is the profit before tax adjusted for amortisation of acquired intangible assets, expenses relating to share option schemes, restructuring costs, legal costs and settlement agreements and costs relating to business combinations.

5. Adjusted earnings per share and adjusted diluted earnings per share uses the adjusted operating profit and applies a normalised tax rate to both years of 25%.

6. Total contracted business includes new business from new clients, new business from existing clients as well as renewals with existing clients.

7. New contracted business includes new business from new clients and new business from existing clients, including product upsells and cross-sells.

8. Eckoh believes that consensus market expectations for the year ending 31 March 2024 is revenue of £38.9 million, adjusted operating profit of £8.2 million and cash of £8.2m.