FD Technologies plc announces full year results for the year ended 28 February 2022

FD Technologies (AIM: FDP.L, Euronext Growth: FDP.I) today announces its results for the year ended 28 February 2022.

Business Highlights

• Successful delivery of accelerated growth strategy, with new Group structure enabling each business unit to deliver its performance targets and investment in KX driving our key metric of growth in recurring revenue
• KX Insights platform launched, with 22 customers signed across financial services, pharma, manufacturing and automotive contributing to growth in exit Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of 25%, in line with our target
• Go-to-market strategy on track, enabling KX to sign 99 subscription agreements during the year (2021: 40), a 148% increase, while also growing our existing customer base with Net Revenue Retention increasing to 106%
• 40% of KX new deal value in the year generated from Industry (2021: 19%), confirming our growing presence outside our core market of financial services driven by high return on investment evidenced by a Forrester report that shows typical payback on KX in less than six months
• Landmark KX and Microsoft strategic partnership agreement, covering the native integration of KX Insights on Azure and joint development of financial services applications and services, validates our strategy and provides significant growth potential
• Strong growth performance for First Derivative, ahead of our expectations and built on enhancements in our engagement model and investment in business leadership and go-to-market
• MRP delivered good growth and is well placed following the launch of Prelytix 3.0, with enhanced AI and self-service capabilities
• Positive outlook across our business units, with FY23 guidance for growth in KX ARR in the range of 35-40% and FY23 guidance for Group revenue and adjusted EBITDA which target a return to double-digit growth.

Seamus Keating, CEO of FD Technologies, commented: “We have delivered a year of transformation across the Group, with each business unit achieving the Key Performance Indicators we set out in our strategy one year ago to accelerate our growth. KX, which was the principal focus of our investment in the year, delivered our target ARR growth, and enters the new financial year with increased momentum from our partnership with Microsoft enabled by the launch of our cloud native KX Insights platform. First Derivative recorded strong growth as it built on its reputation for domain knowledge and delivery excellence, while MRP continued to grow strongly from its leadership position in predictive lead generation. Across the Group, our investment in systems and people positions us to scale our operations to meet our growth ambitions. The opportunities across the markets in which we operate are significant and through continued execution of our strategy I am confident we can unlock value for our customers and accelerate our growth in the years ahead.”

Financial Highlights

*   Excluding lease liabilities

** Adjusted for share-based payments, acquisition and non-operational costs and income, depreciation and amortisation and IT Systems implementation costs expensed

*** At constant currency

Financial Highlights

• Revenue up 11% to £263.5m (up 14% on a constant currency basis), ahead of guidance, driven by good growth at First Derivative and MRP balanced by a reduction in KX perpetual license revenue in line with strategy
• KX exit Annual Recurring Revenue of £47.0m, up 25% in line with target with recurring revenue representing 61% of revenue (2021: 51%) as we focus on high-value subscription revenue growth
• First Derivative revenue £148.0m, up 24%, driven by market demand and strategy of generating value from our expertise and investment in leadership and go-to-market capability
• MRP revenue up 16% to £51.1m, with platform revenue growth of 18% on a constant currency basis, as we focused the launch of Prelytix 3.0 on existing customers
• Adjusted EBITDA £31.0m, within our guidance range following the investment in R&D, go-to-market and operations in line with our accelerated growth strategy
• Net cash £0.3m (2021: net debt £9.9m) excluding lease liabilities, better than market consensus driven by continued focus on working capital.

Current Trading and Outlook

The Group enters the new financial year with good momentum and growing recurring revenue, providing a positive outlook for the year ahead. Our focus remains growth. In KX, we anticipate an acceleration in the key metric of ARR, with growth targeted in the range 35-40%. We expect both First Derivative and MRP to continue to deliver double-digit revenue growth and an improvement in margin.

FY23 guidance for the Group is for revenue in the range £290m to £300m and adjusted EBITDA in the range £36.5m to £38.5m.

For further information, please contact:

About FD Technologies

FD Technologies is a group of data-driven businesses that unlock the value of insight, hindsight and foresight to drive organisations forward. The Group comprises KX, the leading technology for real-time continuous intelligence; First Derivative, which provides technology-led services in capital markets; and MRP, the only enterprise-class, predictive Accounts Based Marketing solution. FD Technologies operates from 12 offices across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, and employs more than 3,000 people worldwide.

For further information, please visit www.fdtechnologies.com and www.kx.com

Results presentation

FD Technologies will publish a pre-recorded presentation today at 07.05 BST on its website at https://fdtechnologies.com/investor-relations/presentations/. The Group will also host a live results Q&A session for analysts at 09.30 BST today.

Read the full RNS release here