Company: WILINK PLC TIDM: WLK Headline: Interim Results Released: 07:01 23-Sep-05 Number: PRNUK-2209
WILink plc, (WLK.LSE) a leading provider of online investor relations and web-based corporate communications solutions, announces preliminary unaudited results for the 6 months ended 30 June 2005
Highlights of the results include:
PBT* £0.93m vs £1.59m in 2004 due to substantial investment behind Vcall and adverse impact of weaker investor sentiment than expected
- Vcall web event revenues up 108%
- PrecisionIR revenues down 5% as investor order growth was offset by a decline in order size
- £900k incremental investment in sales, marketing and R & D initiatives designed to fuel long term growth
- Cash resources remain strong
- Good progress on fund raising to finance internal growth initiatives and acquisition expansion
* Profit Before Tax stated on a pro-forma basis, ie excluding Exceptional items (including Profit on disposal and Loss on termination of operation), Investment income, Tax and Goodwill amortisation). A full reconciliation to UK GAAP is provided below: .jpg) .jpg)
Chairman’s Statement
Vcall web events Vcall revenues more than doubled due to successful cross-selling initiatives, product improvements and the integration of the Communicast acquisition.
We continued to expand Vcall beyond its traditional investor relations client base: revenues for non IR events represented 52% of Vcall revenues against only 18% in the first half of 2004. Moreover, 10% of Vcall clients used Vcall across multiple departments compared to 3% in the second half of 2004. Important contracts were renewed with clients including both the leading Human Resources association in North America and a respected Global Law Firm, while at the same time we also acquired 41 new clients
We invested an additional £0.54m behind Vcall compared to first half 2004, primarily through increased headcount in sales, client service, marketing and R & D. As forecast, this has adversely affected short term profitability, but with the expectation of payback in 2006 from faster organic sales growth, client acquisition and multiple department (“down the hall”) selling.
We made several product improvements to Vcall and successfully integrated services acquired through Communicast to create a more powerful Interactive Media platform for producing web events. We launched the industry’s first Podcast service for Investor Relations events. Over 30 clients signed up for this service within two weeks of launch. We redesigned Vcall.com to be a marketing hub for integrated Vcall web events services and rolled out the new Vcall 4.0 proprietary platform, which is now gaining momentum with clients. At the same time we launched Investorcalendar.com, an event calendar portal specialising in providing investors central access to financial industry audio and video events. InvestorCalendar.com provides investors access to the full range of WILink IR products and services creating a community of over 3 million Institutional and High-Net Worth investors. PrecisionIR PrecisionIR revenues fell 4.9%. This was a disappointing result since we had expected an upturn in investor confidence that would stimulate a modest increase in revenue. Encouragingly, PrecisionIR client-driven fee revenues were up 40% year on year, but investor-driven revenues fell 7.3%. Investor interest in annual report information remained strong and the number of new investors using our services reached record levels, helped in part by additional direct marketing investment in Europe and North America. Moreover, investor order volumes grew 4.1% but order size levels were down and hence revenues declined overall. In addition Sweden’s performance continued to be adversely affected by the marketing challenges experienced in 2004. These are now being addressed by a new management team although the planned actions are unlikely to have an impact until late 2005.
We continued to improve the PrecisionIR product and value proposition to our clients and to investors. These improvements included the enhancement of the Contact Management System to provide clients with better management tools; the expansion of the PrecisionIR range to include IR websites; successfully increasing client participation in Informed Investors Forums; 122 clients took part in these events - a 38% improvement on 2004 – and revenues grew by 29%; the re-design of the PrecisionAlert interface and improved ease of use for investors: over 66,000 new investors in North America and Europe signed up for this service, bringing the total sign ups to this valuable alert system to in excess of 250,000; and broadening the reach of the ♣ Annual Reports Service by adding new Channel Partners in Europe - ThisisMoney & Dow Jones Newswires - and Business Wire in North America. Funding We believe that our client base of 3,600 corporate and mutual funds in North America and Europe positions us well for expansion in the web based corporate communications sector. We have proven abilities to cross sell products to our investor relations clients and to other departments (such as Human Resources, Training and Marketing) within our client organisations. Our aim is to exploit this opportunity by continued investment in sales and marketing resources and through further acquisitions of web based communications companies. The subsequent integration of their products and clients will enable us to become one of the world’s leading providers of web based corporate communications solutions.
This acquisition programme will need to be funded by raising cash and also by issuing equity to vendors. At the recent AGM, we therefore sought and received approval from shareholders to issue up to 1,283,588 new shares, equivalent to 15% of the existing shares in issue. In June 2005 we announced the appointment of Lincoln Partners, a Chicago based Investment Bank, to advise us on strategic options to raise new finance, primarily in the USA. At that time we also confirmed previous announcements that the options under consideration will include a greater private equity involvement in the ownership structure of the Company, which may involve taking the business private.
Good progress has been made. A number of parties have expressed interest in investing in WILink and are meeting with management to review the opportunity. We expect to establish a shortlist within the next few weeks at which stage detailed negotiations will commence.
|