Trading Update

First Derivatives plc
(“FD” or the “Group”)
Trading Update

FD (AIM: FDP.L, ESM: FDP.I), a leading provider of software and consulting services, announces continued strong trading in the second half of its financial year to 29 February 2016. As a result the Board now expects the financial performance for the full year to be comfortably ahead of current consensus forecasts of £109.5m of revenue and £22.1m of EBITDA.

Consulting
Consulting revenue continued to grow strongly in the second half driven by the Group’s high level of contracted revenue and a number of important new customer wins. This included a number of projects where FD is to act as a strategic partner to assist major investment banks with change programmes. This is in line with our business model under which we seek to grow these initial wins into multi-year assignments.

Software
We continue to see strong demand in our traditional financial services market across our range of software products, signing a record number of contracts in the second half of our financial year. Due to the annual recurring nature of our software license contracts the full impact of these wins will be reflected in the financial year ended February 2017. Outside financial services, the Group continues to make good progress with potential customers and partners for its Kx technology products especially for digital marketing and sensor analytics applications.

Brian Conlon, Chief Executive Officer of FD, commented:
“We have made strong progress over the course of the past year and are well placed to continue to do so. In consulting our increasing scale and breadth of expertise is enabling us to get involved earlier in the change lifecycle within our clients, leading to deeper and more strategic relationships. In software, our market-leading capability in analysing large volumes of data in real time is increasingly understood and as a result we have experienced an acceleration of contract wins during the past year. We look forward to updating shareholders further when we announce our full year results.”

Enquiries
For further information please contact:

First Derivatives plc
+44(0)28 3025 2242
www.fdtechnologies.com

Brian Conlon, Chief Executive Officer
Graham Ferguson, Chief Financial Officer
Ian Mitchell, Head of Investor Relations

Investec Bank plc (Nominated Adviser and Broker)
+44 (0)20 7597 4000

Dominic Emery
Carlton Nelson
Sebastian Lawrence

Goodbody (ESM Adviser and Broker)
+353 1 667 0420

Linda Hickey
Finbarr Griffin

Walbrook PR
+44 (0)20 7933 8780

Paul Cornelius / Nick Rome / Helen Cresswell / Sam Allen

About FD

FD is a global technology provider with 20 years of experience. The Group’s Kx technology is used by some of the world’s largest finance, technology and energy institutions. FD employs over 1,500 people worldwide and has operations in London, New York, Stockholm, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney, Palo Alto, Toronto, Philadelphia, Dublin, Belfast and its headquarters in Newry.