Trading Update

Beeks Financial Cloud Group PLC

06 September 2023

 

Beeks Financial Cloud Group plc

("Beeks" or the "Company")

Trading Update

6 September 2023 - Beeks Financial Cloud Group plc (AIM: BKS), a cloud computing and connectivity provider for financial markets, provides an update on trading for the year ended 30 June 2023 (FY23).

Following a strong performance across the Group's Private Cloud offering, and a further Exchange Cloud contract signed with the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), the largest stock exchange in Africa, Beeks has delivered significant growth on the prior year.

Beeks exited FY23 with over 20% growth in ACMRR in the year to £23.8m (30 June 2022: £19.3m), which has further increased to over £25m as at 31 August 2023, as a result of a strong start to the new financial year. This strong growth in ACMRR, combined with the expected JSE Exchange Cloud deployment in the coming weeks provides significant visibility of the Board's FY24 expectations.

Revenue for FY23 is expected to be over 20% higher than FY22, delivering underlying EBITDA¹ growth of over 35% and underlying profit before tax² growth of approximately 10% versus FY22.  In the second half of the year, Beeks achieved a positive free cash flow position in line with management's stated strategy, with unaudited net cash of £4.41m at the period end (H1 23: net cash of 3.35m; FY 22: net cash of 7.86m).

The Company's pipeline of opportunities for each of its offerings is significant and growing. Exchange Cloud remains a potentially transformational opportunity for Beeks, with significant traction with both existing and new customers, albeit contracts of this size will take time to convert.

The above indicative financial results are subject to audit. The Company expects to release audited results for FY23 in early October 2023.

Gordon McArthur, CEO at Beeks, commented: "FY23 was a year of double digit growth and one in which we continued to expand the pipeline across each of our offerings. With two Exchange Cloud contracts now secured following the addition of the JSE in the year, and many more in discussion, we remain confident in the opportunity ahead, as we capitalise on our unique cloud computing offering for the global financial services industry. We have entered the new year with high levels of revenue visibility and strong momentum and thus remain in line with management expectations for FY24, with further upside potential from new client wins."

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.

Notes:

^1. Underlying EBITDA is defined as profit for the period before amortisation, depreciation, finance costs, taxation, acquisition costs, share based payments, exchange rate gains/losses on statement of financial position translation and exceptional non-recurring costs.

^{2 .} Underlying profit before tax is defined as profit before tax excluding amortisation on acquired intangibles, acquisition costs, share based payments, exchange rate gains/losses on statement of financial position translation and exceptional non-recurring costs.

For further information please contact:

Beeks Financial Cloud Group plc
Gordon McArthur, CEO	via Alma PR
Fraser McDonald, CFO
Canaccord Genuity	[phone]
Adam James / Gordon Hamilton
Alma PR	[phone]
Caroline Forde / Hilary Buchanan / Joe Pederzolli

About Beeks:

Beeks provides advanced technology services for capital markets and the finance community. Using innovative trading solutions and a growing network of global data centres, Beeks support their operations and ecosystems by delivering low-latency compute, connectivity and analytics, on-demand. Our cloud-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) model allows financial organisations the flexibility and agility to deploy and connect to exchanges, trading venues and cloud service providers at a fraction of the cost of building their own networks and infrastructure. Our vision is simple: Build. Connect. Analyse.

beeksgroup.com

 

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