![](/cdn/assets/images/search/clock.png)
We could not find any results for:
Make sure your spelling is correct or try broadening your search.
Name | Symbol | Market | Type |
---|---|---|---|
RYB Education Inc | NYSE:RYB | NYSE | Depository Receipt |
Price Change | % Change | Price | High Price | Low Price | Open Price | Traded | Last Trade | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
0.00 | 0.00% | 0.6912 | 0 | 01:00:00 |
RNS Number:2089Z Royalblue Group PLC 29th July 2002 royalblue group plc interim results for the six months ended 30th June 2002 royalblue reports operating profits up by 22%* and major new contracts signed 6 months to 30 June 12 months to 31 Dec 2002 2001 Change 2001 Turnover* £29.3m £25.2m +16% £56.2m Operating profit* £3.9m £3.2m +22% £8.1m Diluted earnings per share* 8.5p 7.1p +20% 17.8p Dividend per share 1.75p 1.6p +9% 4.8p Cash balance £12.1m £11.1m +9% £11.7m Highlights for the six months ended 30th June 2002: • $11 million Royal Bank of Canada order for fidessa signed. • 5 new fidessaNet orders signed. • Strong pipeline in North America. • UK fidessaNet reached break-even. • Recurring revenues now represent 35% of total revenues. • fidessa rental fees and fidessaNet service fees up over 100%. Chief Executive, Chris Aspinwall, said: "Market conditions have continued to be challenging throughout the first half of 2002. In spite of this, we have continued to make progress with revenues up by 16% and operating profit up by 22% over the same period last year. The business has remained cash generative during the first half with cash balances increasing to £12.1 million and the sale of our holding in ICIS Technology Limited, which was announced in July, will further strengthen our cash position in the second half by £3.6 million. The Group remains debt free. We continue to follow accounting practices which the directors believe are amongst the most conservative in the industry. There has been a shift in the profile of our business as our customers respond to financial pressures by reducing both the amount of consultancy they take as well as putting pressure on consultancy rates. We expect that this pressure will continue until conditions start to ease. However, in parallel, revenues from fidessa rentals and fidessaNet services continue to grow as customers implement more software to reduce their operating costs. This has meant that compared to the first half of last year, we have experienced growth in consultancy revenue of 4%, whilst fidessa rental fees and fidessaNet service fees have both experienced growth of over 100%. As a result, recurring revenues now represent a greater proportion of our business at 35%, up from 26% in the same period last year. Looking ahead we expect that the current difficulties in the financial markets will continue and could indeed worsen further before starting to improve. However, despite this, we are still finding new sales opportunities in each of our regions and we have a particularly strong pipeline in North America. As a result, we believe that further growth is possible although we anticipate that the overall growth for the full year will be lower than that achieved in the first half. In summary, whilst the challenging market conditions continue to make forecasting particularly difficult, we believe that the underlying strength of our product set, coupled with the financial strength of the Group, position us well for further progress in the future." * In order to bring clarity to the performance of the continuing business of the Group the table above excludes the results of royalblue technologies which was divested on 16th July 2001. The full Consolidated Profit & Loss Account can be found on page 7 of this announcement. Financial Summary In the six months to 30th June 2002, revenues from continuing operations grew to £29.3 million, an increase of 16% from £25.2 million for the same period last year. Overseas revenues increased to £14.5 million compared to £12.4 million last year, accounting for 49% of the total revenues. The breakdown of the revenues is that consultancy represented 60% (2001: 68%), fidessa licence rental was 19% (2001: 10%), maintenance was 10% (2001: 11%) and fidessaNet service rental was 6% (2001: 3%). In total, the recurring revenues were £10.3 million, up 72% on the same period last year. Operating profit from continuing operations grew 22% to £3.9 million with an operating margin of 13.1%, up from 12.5% in 2001. All product development was expensed in the operating profit with 18% of employees focused on this activity. Diluted earnings per share increased by 20% to 8.5p for the continuing operations. The business continues successfully to generate cash and at 30th June 2002 the cash balance had increased to £12.1 million. The cash position will be further strengthened in the second half by the £3.6 million net proceeds from the sale of our holding in ICIS Technology Limited and the £0.5 million first loan note repayment by Touchpaper Software Limited (the HelpDesk business divested in July 2001). The Group has no debt, nor any goodwill write off or deferred consideration payable for previous acquisitions. An interim dividend of 1.75p per share (2001: 1.6p) will be paid on 30th September 2002 to shareholders on the register on 30th August 2002. There are general concerns in the market regarding the accounting practices of all public companies. The directors believe that royalblue's accounting practices are amongst the most conservative in the industry and some of the key elements are: • The majority of our consultancy revenue is from time and materials work with the revenue recognised as work is performed and invoiced. • The majority of our licence revenue comes from rentals where revenue is recognised as the software is actually used. For outright licences the revenue is recognised on a percentage complete basis for the implementation project as a whole. • No product development expenditure, internal development costs or pre-contract costs are capitalised, all being expensed as incurred. • Depreciation of fixed assets is over a short life, such as two years for computer hardware. Operations Introduction As widely experienced by all companies servicing the financial markets, conditions have remained challenging throughout the first half of 2002. In spite of this, we have continued to make progress resulting in increased revenues and profits over the same period last year. Across all regions we are seeing increased demand for our connectivity software providing links to exchanges, ECNs and the buy-side institutions and we believe that this demand will continue as firms look to reduce the cost of handling order flow. We are also seeing demand growing steadily for fidessaNet where the full service model can provide short term cost benefits and we have signed five new orders in the period, with a total expected value of £4.4 million over two years. Within the Enterprise business (where customers run the software on their own systems), we have seen continued activity as we roll out more software. This has been particularly focused on supporting the many exchange upgrades, market changes, more connectivity services and routing of order flow across national boundaries. We have also signed two significant rental deals in the first half. One, with the Royal Bank of Canada, is for a US domestic trading system and includes connectivity to the Canadian market. This deal is expected to be worth around $11 million over five years. The second is a renewal for ABN Amro covering their global operation and including a new implementation of fidessaNet for their US domestic trading operation. This second deal is expected to be worth £8.2m over two to three years. These deals provide further proof of the ongoing value fidessa products can continue to add to the largest Enterprise customers' businesses despite the current market conditions. As a result of recent sales the UK fidessaNet operation has achieved break-even six months earlier than anticipated whilst the US fidessaNet operation is still on plan to achieve break-even by the end of 2003. Overall, recurring revenues have continued to strengthen, up by 72% and representing 35% of total revenue. Europe Activity in Europe has been concentrated around: • Increased connectivity to exchanges and also to buy-side firms both directly and through fidessaNet. • Support for a number of mandatory upgrades across the markets including the move to a new IP network by the London Stock Exchange. • The implementation of multi-centre order routing and position management functionality as customers integrate their operations more closely across national boundaries. • Implementation of more fidessaNet customers. Exchange activity continued throughout the first half with upgrades required for Xetra, Virt-X, Euronext (for Paris Amsterdam and Brussels), Stockholm, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Oslo, Milan, London and also a new interface to Johannesburg which was implemented from the UK. An increasing number of customers are now switching to take connectivity through fidessaNet rather than managing it themselves as this generates significant cost benefits. Looking ahead to the second half, a number of changes are expected which will generate further opportunities for fidessa: • Euronext is planning a major upgrade to connectivity and is moving the French, Dutch, and Portuguese derivatives across to Liffe Connect. • Deutsche Borse is releasing Xetra 7 which will require a mandatory upgrade. A Central Counterparty is also scheduled for introduction in the first quarter of 2003. • NASDAQ Europe plans to go live with a hybrid quote and order market. • SWX & Virt-X are planning a mandatory technical upgrade followed by a major upgrade in the fourth quarter. New product initiatives that are currently being developed and targeted into Europe include: • A new version of the ROMA (remote order management) workstation which is designed to enable remote offices to access central order management functionality. • A new lightweight fidessaNet workstation targeted at smaller customers (typically below 10 traders) which provides basic market data as well as the ability to route and execute order flow. • New product to support the alignment of the cash and portfolio businesses which will cover portfolio and basket trading. • A new version of CTAC (V2.3), our middle office product, which has been enhanced to provide a number of new features including bulk confirmations, web-based confirmations and matching multiple client trades to single broker trades. North America In North America, our business has continued to develop with revenues up by 16% and a strong sales pipeline in place. Structural changes as well as the common theme of electronic connectivity that we are seeing across all locations look set to help our business to continue to develop in the North American market. Examples of some of these structural market changes are: • SuperMontage, the new combined order and quote driven market within Nasdaq, has resulted in the requirement for significant new trading functionality. SuperMontage is scheduled to go live at the end of July. • The requirement for a price-point consolidated order book which enables traders to find the best price and depth across multiple markets and liquidity points. • The growing use of fee based trading which is the new trading model being used by many Nasdaq MarketMakers. As well as new products to support the market changes, we are also releasing new packaging for existing products to target specific functionality. This includes, for example, the packaging of SuperMontage and price-point consolidated order book software into a smaller workstation product. This functionality lends itself well to a simple and quickly installed product and provides an easy entry point into fidessa and fidessaNet for customers who have other products or their own systems. Connectivity both to liquidity points, such as exchanges and ECNs, and to buy-side customers is becoming increasingly important throughout all our regions. During the first half of 2002 we have developed further links to connect the major buy-side firms to broker-dealers and now have connectivity to six of the major buy-side networks as well as direct connection to three major firms. This means we can now receive order flow from in excess of 300 buy-side firms. We are also investigating growing opportunities for leveraging our connectivity to the NYSE by providing connections to enable buy-side institutions to route order flow through to the NYSE floor. In the Canadian market we have signed a fidessa rental deal with the Royal Bank of Canada which, in addition to incorporating support for the US domestic market, also includes connectivity to the Toronto Stock Exchange and CDNX (formerly the Vancouver Stock Exchange). Asia Throughout Asia, the markets have remained nervous during the first half of 2002. However, we are continuing to find opportunities for software to connect to the main markets and have increased the number of Asian exchanges we support to eight. We are also starting to see interest in direct connectivity to some of the secondary markets such as Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia. We have connected two additional clients to the Taiwan market and have also put our first client live on the Korean market with others expected to follow. Market changes continued in a number of centres and in Japan, the Kinyucho (Japanese Financial Agency) amended the short sale rules making it a violation to sell short at a price which was the same or less than the last trade price. A number of firms breached this rule, as it is difficult to implement manually, and we have taken the opportunity to modify fidessa to provide automatic protection for our customers. As in Europe, there has been significant activity throughout Asia providing support for cross border order flows. We have now rolled out fidessa software across a number of our customers' Asian offices and as a result have trading workstations installed in the majority of the region's financial centres including Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Australia and New Zealand. Product Development Throughout the first half we have maintained our product development expenditure. In addition to the numerous new developments and extensions to the product set mentioned in the regional summaries above, we have also commenced the marketing of the new V5 product set. The first phase of this is completing development with rollout scheduled to begin from summer 2002. The new V5 product consists of a new version of the core trading platform and new versions of each of the trading applications. The V5 product set is being delivered as a gradual rollout and compatibility is being maintained between V5 products and the current product set. The fidessa V5 product set is based on the next generation database technology which provides a number of important enhancements including high speed indexing and a 64 bit architecture delivering substantial performance improvements on all systems, and much better scalability for very large systems. Maximum order and execution throughput is increased by more than 10 times on the new platform. The data footprint has also been substantially reduced which, combined with performance improvements, means that smaller hardware can be used to run the same applications. This provides benefits to Enterprise customers reducing the cost of operating fidessa and also reduces royalblue's cost of operating the fidessaNet service. All fidessa applications will be rolled out as part of the V5 program and these will use the new architecture to provide substantial functional benefits such as global order management, order grouping and order hierarchies. The new platform also provides the technology and business infrastructure for new applications including Portfolio/Basket and Cross Regional Transaction Management. fidessaNet Our fidessaNet operation has continued to make progress with five additional sales for the full service offering and three additional sales for the connectivity service during the first half. fidessaNet service revenue increased by in excess of 100% over the same period last year. Implementation was completed for three new full service fidessaNet clients and, with the systems currently being implemented, we expect the total number of fidessaNet trading workstations to approach 500 by the end of the year. The average volume processed per month by fidessaNet during the first half of 2002 was 65,000 orders with 180,000 executions. This represents a 67% increase on the average order volumes recorded in the last half of 2001. Connectivity was added to the Helsinki Stock Exchange, the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Boston Stock Exchange and the Bloomberg ECN. A number of electronic buy-side interfaces have been made available, including connectivity to the major buy-side networks with links to the Indications of Interest (IOI) services also available. The pipeline for fidessaNet continues to be strong and we anticipate further sales to new customers in both the UK and the US in the second half. Employees The staff numbers at 30th June were 517, up 10% on the same time last year. On behalf of royalblue's shareholders the Board extends its thanks to all the Group 's employees for the exceptional commitment and professionalism they have shown in meeting the challenges caused by the current market conditions. Outlook Looking ahead, we expect that the current difficulties in the financial markets will continue and could worsen further before starting to improve. It is clear that we cannot be immune from the effects of current market conditions and we expect that this will mean a period of slower growth. However, our focus in providing software which helps our customers to automate their business flows has enabled us to achieve a position where we can play a key part in helping our customers to reduce their costs. This has been tangibly reflected in that, despite the ongoing difficulties faced by our customers, we have continued to be able to sell fidessa and fidessaNet systems to new clients as well as continuing sales into our existing client base. We believe that the current pressure we are inevitably facing on consultancy revenue is a transient condition, which will turn quickly when markets improve, and that the overall strength of our business is reflected in the strong growth in the software and fidessaNet revenues. We have continued and will continue our product development programme, maintaining our investment level so that we bring more and better product to market. This has meant that not only have we provided software to meet the mandatory market changes, but have also developed a substantial revision to our underlying technology which will continue to provide both functional and performance benefits over the coming years. We feel that this development, combined with our sound business model and strong financial position, represent a compelling message for both new and existing customers when looking for a strategic partner to work with in the current turbulent markets. enquiries: John Hamer, Chairman Alastair Hetherington, Financial Dynamics Chris Aspinwall, Chief Executive Edward Bridges, Financial Dynamics Andy Malpass, Finance Director Ben Way, Financial Dynamics www.royalblue.com Tel: 0207 831 3113 Tel: 01483 206300 Fax: 01483 206301 Fax: 0207 831 6341 Consolidated Profit and Loss Account for the six months ended 30th June 2002 2002 2001 2001 6 months 6 months 12 months to 30th June to 30th June to 31st December Unaudited Restated Restated Notes £'000 £'000 £'000 Turnover Continuing operations 2 29,315 25,166 56,174 Discontinued operations - 9,527 10,079 _______ _______ _______ 29,315 34,693 66,253 Operating profit/(loss) Continuing operations 3,853 3,154 8,096 Discontinued operations - (1,302) (1,550) Exceptional item: loss on sale of discontinued - - (2,658) operations _______ _______ _______ Profit on ordinary activities before interest and 3,853 1,852 3,888 taxation Net interest receivable 131 173 309 _______ _______ _______ Profit on ordinary activities before taxation 3,984 2,025 4,197 Taxation on profit on ordinary activities 3 (1,292) (1,035) (2,145) _______ _______ _______ Profit on ordinary activities after taxation 2,692 990 2,052 Dividends paid and proposed 4 (518) (462) (1,396) _______ _______ _______ Retained profits for the period 2,174 528 656 _______ _______ _______ Earnings per share: 5 Basic - continuing operations 9.2p 7.8p 19.8p Diluted - continuing operations 8.5p 7.1p 17.8p Basic - total operations 9.2p 3.4p 7.1p Diluted - total operations 8.5p 3.1p 6.4p Consolidated Statement of Total Recognised Gains and Losses for the six months ended 30th June 2002 2002 2001 2001 6 months 6 months 12 months to 30th June to 30th June to 31st December £'000 £'000 £'000 Profit for period 2,692 990 2,052 Differences on exchange on re-translation of net (104) 23 44 assets of overseas undertaking Prior year adjustment 1,033 - - _____ _____ _____ Total recognised gains and losses 2,588 1,013 2,096 _____ _____ _____ Consolidated Balance Sheet at 30th June 2002 2002 2001 2001 30th June 30th June 31st December Unaudited Restated Restated £'000 £'000 £'000 Fixed Assets Intangible fixed assets - 550 - Tangible fixed assets 5,032 7,856 6,019 Investments 49 49 49 Investment in own shares 2,206 2,360 2,351 7,287 10,815 8,419 Current assets Debtors 18,613 23,707 16,596 Cash at bank and in hand 12,140 11,122 11,674 30,753 34,829 28,270 Creditors: Amounts falling due (16,937) (26,686) (17,648) within one year Net current assets 13,816 8,143 10,622 Total assets less current 21,103 18,958 19,041 liabilities Creditors: Amounts falling due (467) (3) (493) after more than one year ______ ______ ______ Net assets 20,636 18,955 18,548 ______ ______ ______ Capital and reserves Called up share capital 3,064 3,020 3,046 Share premium account 10,371 8,702 9,953 Other reserves - 309 - Profit and loss account 7,201 6,924 5,549 ______ ______ ______ Total equity shareholders' funds 20,636 18,955 18,548 ______ ______ ______ Consolidated Cash Flow Statement for the six months ended 30th June 2002 2002 2001 2001 6 months 6 months 12 months to to 30th to 30th 31st December June June Unaudited Unaudited Audited £'000 £'000 £'000 Operating profit 3,853 1,852 6,546 Depreciation charge 1,466 1,652 3,031 Goodwill amortisation charge - 15 17 Charge for share options granted at less than the - 46 46 market price (Increase)/decrease in working capital (2,981) (203) 78 Other items 7 7 3 _______ _______ _______ Net cash inflow from operating activities 2,345 3,369 9,721 Returns on investments and servicing of finance 131 173 309 Taxation paid (698) (417) (1,982) Capital expenditure and financial investments (572) (1,638) (4,120) Acquisitions - - (1,276) Equity dividends paid (936) (892) (1,354) _______ _______ _______ Net cash inflow before financing 270 595 1,298 Management of liquid resources 78 500 (1,000) Financing 162 86 33 _______ _______ _______ Increase in cash 510 1,181 331 _______ _______ _______ Notes to The Interim Statement 1. Basis of preparation The interim financial statements are unaudited but have been reviewed by KPMG Audit Plc and their report is set out below. The interim statement has been prepared on the basis of the accounting policies as set out in the annual statements for the year ended 31st December 2001. The financial information contained in this interim statement does not amount to statutory accounts within the meaning of section 240 Companies Act 1985. The figures for the year ended 31st December 2001 are extracted from the statutory accounts of royalblue group plc, except with regard to deferred tax as noted below. The statutory accounts for that year have been reported on by the company's auditors and delivered to the Registrar of Companies. The report of the auditors was unqualified and did not contain a statement under section 237 (2) or (3) Companies Act 1985. 2. Analysis of turnover Turnover is analysed by geographic destination as follows: 2002 2001 2001 6 months to 6 months to 12 months to 30th June 30th June 31st December Unaudited Unaudited Audited £'000 £'000 £'000 Continuing operations United Kingdom 14,830 12,777 29,674 USA & Canada 8,343 7,179 15,810 Continental Europe 2,018 1,204 2,179 Rest of World 4,124 4,006 8,511 _______ _______ _______ 29,315 25,166 56,174 _______ _______ _______ 3. Taxation The charge for taxation for the six months ended 30th June 2002 reflects the anticipated effective rate for the period. In December 2000 the Accounting Standards Board published Financial Reporting Standard 19 Deferred Tax. Compliance with the new standard is mandatory for accounting periods ending on or after 23rd January 2002 and the standard has been adopted in the preparation of these interim financial statements. Comparative figures have been restated. Deferred tax is now recognised in respect of all timing differences that have originated but not reversed by the balance sheet date. Deferred tax assets are recognised to the extent that they are regarded as recoverable. 4. Dividend on ordinary shares An interim dividend of 1.75p pence per share is declared and will be paid on 30th September 2002 to shareholders on the register on 30th August 2002. 5. Earnings per share The calculation of basic earnings per share is based on the profit attributable to shareholders divided by 29,318,422 ordinary shares (2001: 28,777,649 ordinary shares). The number of shares is based on the weighted average number of shares in issue during the period less the shares owned by the royalblue group plc Employee Benefit Trust. The number of shares in issue at 30th June 2002 was 30,639,240 (2001: 30,203,020). The diluted earnings per share is based on 31,795,312 ordinary shares (2001: 31,978,058 ordinary shares). The diluted earnings per share have been calculated using an average share price of 529p (2001: 916p). 6. Post balance sheet event As announced on 4th July 2002 the Group disposed of its minority stake trade investment in ICIS Technology Limited ("ICIS") to Siemens Holdings Plc. ICIS was formed in 1989 as an operating division of royalblue. Following a strategic review of its operations in 1992, royalblue divested the business by means of a buy-out backed by the ICIS management team, and retained a minority shareholding. Since that date royalblue has had no operational involvement in the business and has treated its holding as a trade investment at cost. ICIS is a major supplier of software products to power companies operating in the UK and abroad. In the year to 31st March 2002 ICIS reported operating profits of £1.4 million and net assets of £2.7 million. The consideration is entirely in cash with initial consideration of £4.0 million generating a one-off exceptional gain of £3.6 million for royalblue in the current year. There is further consideration of £0.1million payable subject to certain conditions being met at completion, and then additional performance related consideration of up to £0.9 million subject to results for the period to 30th September 2004. 7. Circulation to shareholders Copies of this interim report will be sent to shareholders and copies will be available to the public at the Company's registered office, Dukes Court, Duke Street, Woking, Surrey GU21 5BH. Independent Review Report by KPMG Audit Plc to royalblue group plc Introduction We have been instructed by the company to review the financial information set out on pages 6 to 11 and we have read the other information contained in the interim report and considered whether it contains any apparent misstatements or material inconsistencies with the financial information. Directors' responsibilities The interim report, including the financial information contained therein, is the responsibility of, and has been approved by the directors. The Listing Rules of the Financial Services Authority require that the accounting policies and presentation applied to the interim figures should be consistent with those applied in preparing the preceding annual accounts except where any changes, and the reasons for them, are disclosed. Review work performed We conducted our review in accordance with guidance contained in Bulletin 1999/4 issued by the Auditing Practices Board. A review consists principally of making enquiries of group management and applying analytical procedures to the financial information and underlying financial data and based thereon, assessing whether the accounting policies and presentation have been consistently applied unless otherwise disclosed. A review excludes audit procedures such as tests of controls and verification of assets, liabilities and transactions. It is substantially less in scope than an audit performed in accordance with Auditing Standards and therefore provides a lower level of assurance than an audit. Accordingly we do not express an audit opinion on the financial information. Review conclusion On the basis of our review we are not aware of any material modifications that should be made to the financial information as presented for the six months ended 30th June 2002. KPMG Audit Plc Chartered Accountants Crawley 26th July 2002 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
1 Year RYB Education Chart |
1 Month RYB Education Chart |
It looks like you are not logged in. Click the button below to log in and keep track of your recent history.
Support: +44 (0) 203 8794 460 | support@advfn.com
By accessing the services available at ADVFN you are agreeing to be bound by ADVFN's Terms & Conditions