First Day of Dealings
Imaginatik PLC
15 December 2006
IMAGINATIK PLC
('IMAGINATIK' OR THE 'COMPANY')
FIRST DAY OF DEALINGS
Imaginatik plc (AIM: IMTK), a leading provider of software and services to help
companies build an infrastructure for sustainable innovation, announces its
first day of dealings of its Ordinary Shares on AIM.
The Company has raised £1.5 million net of expenses via a Placing at 7.5p per
share, to fund, inter alia, the addition of further sales executives, marketing
resources and implementation staff in both the US and UK, which will enable the
Company to take advantage of the expanding market for its products.
Overview of the Company
• Founded in 2000 by Mr. Mark Turrell, CEO and Dr. Yvonne Lindow, VP of
Operations, Imaginatik has operations in the US, UK and Germany and sells
to predominantly medium to large-scale corporations.
• Imaginatik and its founders have developed a software-based process to
enable corporations to facilitate innovations across their operations. The
Company's core product is 'Idea Central', a software package that helps
businesses to innovate systematically across the organisation.
• Imaginatik's revenues have grown from £0.58 million in the year ended 31
March 2004 to £1.4 million in the year ended 31 March 2006. In the six
months to 30 September 2006 sales have grown to £1.3 million, a 200 per
cent increase on the equivalent period in the previous year. The Company's
pipeline of prospects at the end of August 2006 was six times larger than
it was at the end of November 2005.
• The Company has established a strong client base in the US as well as a
number of clients in Europe, ranging across a number of industry sectors,
and is seeing significant growth in its business. Clients of Imaginatik
include: Pfizer Inc., Hewlett-Packard, Weyerhaeuser Corporation, Chevron
Texaco Global Lubricants and Cargill Inc.
• According to a February 2005 industry report by IDC Corporation, the
global innovation market is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth
rate of 35 per cent over the next few years.
Mr. Mark Turrell, CEO and Co-founder of Imaginatik commented:
'Innovation is now acknowledged as being a key factor in achieving long-term
growth. As market leaders in the process of innovation, some of the world's
largest companies are now turning to Imaginatik to help them build an
infrastructure for sustainable innovation which reaches across their entire
organisation. We believe our first mover advantage, strong client base of
largely blue chip organisations and award-winning well developed product line,
mean we are well positioned to capitalise on the expected growth of this
market.'
For further information, please contact:
Imaginatik plc Tel: 020 7917 2975
Mark Turrell, CEO / Shawn Taylor, CFO
WH Ireland Tel: 0121 616 2101
Tim Cofman / Katy Birkin
ICIS Tel: 020 7651 8688
Tom Moriarty / Caroline Evans-Jones
Placing statistics
Placing Price 7.5p
Number of Ordinary Shares being issued under the Placing 27,793,345
Gross proceeds of the Placing £2.1 million
Estimated net proceeds receivable by the Company £1.5 million
Number of existing Ordinary Shares prior to the Placing 80,000,000
Number of Ordinary Shares in issue immediately following Admission 116,601,226
Market capitalisation of the Company at the Placing Price £8.7 million
BACKGROUND ON THE COMPANY
Imaginatik focuses on the provision of innovation management processes to medium
and large-scale organisations. It offers businesses a comprehensive solution for
their innovation and idea management requirements, consisting of leading
software products and related consulting services. Imaginatik's approach
delivers tools that focus on using the employees, customers, suppliers and other
stakeholders in the enterprise to address relevant business issues, generate new
sources of revenue and deliver cost reductions.
The Market
The global innovation market is growing quickly. According to a February 2005
industry report by IDC Corporation, the market is forecast to grow at a compound
annual growth rate of 35% over the next few years. A 2005 Bain & Company survey
found that 86% of executives said that innovation is more important than cost
reduction for long-term success and a survey by PriceWaterhouseCoopers in March
2005 found that two-thirds of Chief Executive Offices from America's fastest
growing private companies reported that innovation is an organisation-wide
priority.
Innovation impacts many types of organisations - in both the private and the
public sector. The European Union has for a number of years funded innovation
initiatives and most EU governments now have innovation mandates. The European
Commission announced on 12 October 2005 an action plan in a bid to boost
innovation in the 25-nation bloc. Its focus is on providing the best conditions
for private sector innovation and research.
Idea Central
The Company's core software product is Idea Central; the software won the Basex
Award for Excellence, a prestigious industry award, for being the leading Idea
and Innovation package in the marketplace. In addition, Idea Central was
identified by KMWorld, an industry publication, as being 'a trend setting
product' in September 2005 and again in September 2006.
The software may be applied to many business operations, across a variety of
industries and in many cultures and countries. The market for Imaginatik's
products is therefore wide, with no requirement to restrict the sales and
marketing efforts to specific industries or functions. The software is
multi-lingual, configurable, can be deployed quickly and is designed to keep the
need for custom modifications to a minimum.
Hosted Service
Imaginatik provides hosting facilities for the software to assist clients who do
not wish to install the software on their own systems. The infrastructure is
provided and managed by a third party in a separate facility. Approximately two
thirds of Imaginatik's software implementations are delivered as a hosted
service. Generally, the 'Software As A Service' (SaaS) model is expected to grow
rapidly. According to Gartner Group, a leading technical research house, 33 per
cent of all corporate applications will be hosted in some form outside of a
company's internal IT systems by 2009. Many of Imaginatik's clients favour the
hosted approach because of the security features offered by the service
provider.
Results
Clients have reported significant success as a result of their relationship with
Imaginatik. For instance, Georgia Pacific deployed the Imaginatik software in
2003 and various ideas garnered from its employees successfully reduced the
costs of manufacture of one component part alone by $1.2 million per annum. In
addition, Grace Chemical's manufacturing division has harvested over 2,500 new
ideas for improvements, yielding 76 new products and 67 distinct improvements.
It estimates that their new ideas have increased revenues by as much as $3
million per annum.
Revenue Model
Imaginatik's sources of revenue comprise of licence fees, maintenance fees,
hosting fees and consulting services. Most clients buy the licence for an Idea
Central environment, pay for maintenance and hosting on an ongoing annual basis
and also order a package of innovation consulting services. The annual licence
has become a popular choice, ensuring a significant amount of contracted
recurring revenue for future years. Imaginatik's goal is to generate at least 65
per cent of its revenue from licence, hosting and maintenance fees with the
remainder arising from consulting services.
Strategy
Imaginatik's strategy is to expand the market for innovation management in
medium to large companies in its primary geographic markets of the US and
Europe. Imaginatik intends to consolidate its industry lead in this emerging
market and to leverage the Company's core advantages. The Directors believe that
these are as follows:
• a market leader in a fragmented market;
• existing blue chip client base;
• well established and award-winning technology platform;
• recognised industry expertise; and
• highly motivated, capable team.
Imaginatik intends to continue to develop both its proprietary technology and
methods of exploiting the underlying technology, combined with broad industry
and functional knowledge of innovation, to provide quick-to-implement, high
value solutions.
Imaginatik aims to build strong client relationships that have the potential to
provide long-term regular repeat business. Each client has the potential to
provide a source of recurring licence fees, hosting fees, support and
maintenance fees and services revenue.
The net proceeds of the Placing are intended to be used to continue its growth
and take advantage of the expanding market for its products, by hiring further
staff in all areas of the Company in both the UK and the US.
The Directors believe that the Placing and Admission will also increase the
corporate profile of the Company, enable Imaginatik to incentivise and retain
key staff, and afford increased flexibility in financing the growth of the
business and any possible acquisitions in the longer-term.
Directors
Howard Cleveley Marshall (Non-executive Chairman, aged 63, British)
Howard is a graduate mathematician and holds a Masters Degree in Business
Administration from London Business School. He was the Chairman and Chief
Executive of Bullough plc from 2001 to 2003, and between 1989 and 2000, Chief
Executive of Ash & Lacy plc. Howard has served at main board level within UK
public companies for 17 years. Howard is a non-executive Director of Hill &
Smith Holdings plc, an infrastructure engineering company involved in transport
and construction industries. He is also a governor of the University of Central
England, Heart of England Tourist Board and Chairman of Orchestra of the Swan.
Mark Clifford Turrell (Chief Executive Officer, aged 36, Canadian)
Mark is a co-founder of Imaginatik and the main shareholder. He has advised over
300 companies on innovation management and related topics of knowledge
management and collaborative technologies. In 2001, he founded the Imaginatik
Research organisation which is dedicated to fundamental research in corporate
innovation.
Mark is a frequent speaker on innovation and idea management and is widely
recognised as a leading authority in the field of idea management, having
written numerous magazine articles and papers. He has been an expert guest on
CNN, CNBC and CNET Radio. Mark is also the author of 'Deployment and Beyond', an
executive guide to implementing innovation applications.
Mark has a BSc in Business from Cass School of Business. He was has lectured at
Penn State University and he also lectures occasionally at several business
schools including Cass School of Business and Harvard Business School.
Shawn Karl Taylor FCA (Chief Financial Officer, aged 44, British)
Shawn joined Imaginatik in September 2005 and maintains responsibility for
financial systems and processes. Shawn also has responsibility for the routine
financial controls, management accounting, forecasting and budgeting procedures,
treasury management, foreign exchange control and corporate governance
compliance. He has 8 years' experience as a public company CFO and has led
companies through growth phases having previously been Chief Financial Officer
of HIT Entertainment Plc from 1998 to 2001 and Content Film Plc from 2001 to
2004.
Andrew Karl Wainwright (Chief Technical Officer, aged 39, British)
Andrew manages hosting operations, client support, pre-sales technical support
and internal I.T. He is responsible for creating Imaginatik's hosted services.
His background includes 12 years with IBM from 1988 to 2000, where he was
European Manager for Hosted Services. Andrew has written three technical books
on managing hosted systems, and has been an IT management consultant. Andrew has
an MA in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge. Andrew joined Imaginatik
in November 2001.
Paul Gilmer Morland ACA (Non-executive Director, aged 46, British)
Paul is the Software and Computer Services analyst at Arbuthnot Securities.
Having qualified as a Chartered Accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1985,
Paul spent three years at Schroder Investment Management. He then held various
accounting roles in industry including divisional CFO at Serco Plc.
In 1995 he joined NatWest Securities and was voted the number one analyst in the
UK technology sector in the 1998 Extel survey. During this period he was
involved in a number of flotations including Autonomy and Computacenter. He was
consistently ranked in the top three analysts in his sector until he left
Deutsche Bank (which acquired NatWest Securities in 1999) in 2000 to become the
CFO of a privately owned IT services company. He returned to an analyst role in
the Software and IT Services sector in 2002 and his team at Societe Generale was
voted number two in the 2005 pan-European Extel survey.
Phillip George Nutburn (Non-executive Director, aged 57, British)
Phil has worked for a number of technology businesses, including LTX
Corporation, Schlumberger and GenRad where he worked internationally and in the
UK. Phil was Vice President & General Manager of European Operations at Aspect
Development Inc. (acquired by 12 Technologies in 1996), between 1992 and 2000.
Since then he has worked as a consultant advising boards of early stage US
Companies seeking to do business in Europe.
Phil is a Chartered Engineer who holds an Electrical and Electronics Engineering
degree from the University of Northumberland and is a graduate of the IMD
(Switzerland) Program of Executive Development.
Directors' Interests
The Directors' aggregate interests in Ordinary Shares following Admission will
amount to 85,872,092 Ordinary Shares (including the interest in Ordinary Shares
held by Mr Turrell's wife, Dr Yvonne Lindow) representing approximately 73.65
per cent of the Enlarged Share Capital of the Company and options over a further
5,000,000 Ordinary Shares under the Share Option Scheme.
Substantial Shareholders
Name Ordinary Shares % of the share
at the date of capital on
Admission Admission
Artemis Investment Management Limited 8,000,000 6.86
Octopus Investments 4,800,000 4.12
Wills & Co Stockbrokers Limited 4,000,000 3.43
Williams de Broe Limited 4,000,000 3.43
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange