Acceleration of Mobile Offering

RNS Number : 6859Z

Toople PLC

31 May 2016

 

Toople Plc

("Toople" or the "Company" or the "Group")

Acceleration of Mobile Offering

Toople plc (LSE: TOOP), a provider of telecommunications services to the UK SME market, is pleased to announce that it has entered into agreements with Henry Howard Finance plc ("HHF") ("the Agreements") to facilitate the launch of Toople's mobile phone offering.  

Pursuant to the Agreements, HHF will advance the Group a £100,000 cash facility to enable the Group to purchase mobile handsets to offer to its customers without the need to use existing cash resources (the "Facility").  Additionally, leasing arrangements provided by HHF will allow the Group to recover the cost of the handsets shortly after the Group has sold a mobile phone package contract.

As part of the Agreements the Group will also utilise HHF's automated credit checking and e-sign facilities to allow automation of sales through the Toople.com website. This is in line with the Company's stated strategy of having zero touch sales and provisioning which the Directors believe makes the Group's activities very scalable.

In addition, the Company is also pleased to announce that it has added two further mobile network propositions to its mobile offering five months earlier than previously anticipated as set out in the Company's prospectus. Both o2 and Vodafone services will be made available to the Group's customers alongside services from EE. The Group now plans to launch its mobile proposition some months ahead of schedule, with the service expected to be live on the Company's website by on or around the end of June.

Andy Hollingworth, CEO of Toople plc adds "We are very pleased to be able to accelerate our mobile offerings. The leasing arrangements and the cash facility allows us flexibility of funds without needing to worry about peaks in any orders we receive. This, in addition to obtaining two extra mobile networks, should allow Toople to offer a great combination of services to customers."

Dan Proctor of HHF states, "We are very happy to have signed agreements with Toople and are thrilled to be supporting them with their exciting services and online approach. We love the automation that the business has and can see this is the way that all SME businesses will procure their services in the future."

Further information on the Facility

The Facility is interest free as long as any payments advanced under the Facility are repaid within 3 months. Amounts receivable by Toople under the leasing arrangements with HHF will be offset against amounts payable by Toople under the Facility. Following repayment of the initial £100,000, it is expected that the same level of Facility will be available on the same terms going forward.

Enquiries:

Toople PLC	0800 0499 499
Andy Hollingworth, Chief Executive Officer
Cairn Financial Advisers LLP
Financial Adviser	020 7148 7900
Emma Earl / Rebecca Anderson
Vicarage Capital
Broker	020 3651 2911
Rupert Williams / Jeremy Woodgate

About Toople:

The Group provides a range of telecoms services primarily targeted at the UK SME market. Its services offered include business broadband, fibre, EFM and Ethernet data services, business mobile phones, cloud PBX and SIP Trunking and traditional services (calls and lines) all of which are delivered and managed through Merlin, the Group's proprietary software platform that delivers automation for the services provided.

The Directors believe, the Group's key differentiator, compared to its competitors, is the Group's proprietary software platform, Merlin. Merlin allows potential customers to build a bespoke package online, tailored to each customer's particular requirements accompanied by an instant, accurate online quote and the ability to purchase the services online. Merlin connects via application program interfaces ("API's") to identify the best available service for each customer. Merlin also delivers cross-device functionality, allowing customers to share bundled packages and minutes across devices and employees and captures these arrangements in straight-forward billing. Merlin is fully operational and has been successfully implemented across the Group's existing customer base.

The target market of the Group is UK SMEs who have between 1 and 50 employees (of which there are 5.4million, with around 15.6million employees).

Technology & Consumer Preferences

The telecoms industry advances continually, driven by both improved technology and shifts in consumer preferences. Recent years have seen an increased focus on the Hosted Market (inclusive of Cloud PBX / VoIP) and consumers are driven by both pricing and quality of service. The Directors believe that not only is it important to deliver quality whilst remaining competitively priced, but also be able to identify and implement new technologies on an ongoing basis to meet the ever changing needs of the consumer.

The Directors believe the Group's in-house software and in-house development team who are focused on innovation and developing the Merlin platform, makes the Group and its business very flexible and scalable.

Further information can be found at the Group's website, www.toople.com 

About Henry Howard Finance:

HHF are an independent finance group with a national base of customers who are fast becoming the lender of choice within the Telco sector. HHF aim to become the number one lender of choice for SME financing needs.

HHF have also recently added significant weight to its lending capability and has agreed an additional £51 million facility to its lending capability.

 

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