Eckoh Share Discussion Threads

[boadicea] 14/5/2019 07:57

A very encouraging update. I Like the continued strong cash flow.

[azioni2] 02/5/2019 10:19

Thank you Boadicea and Mazarin for your replies. I am quite comfortable holding as my average is just under 0.35 following a couple of purchases in January this year.
However I have bought and sold on various occasions over the years. Some good news must be forthcoming considering the excellent prospects Eckho has in the US and hopefully the share price will reflect these ongoing opportunities.

[mazarin] 02/5/2019 08:53

azioni2 I suspect we're due some News soon, as its been quite a while now since ECK announced their last series of Contract wins. ECK touched 53p in Nov 15, and has returned to the same area several times since then, each time driven primarily by news of further Contract wins, so we have a way to go yet, however, I remain ever optimistic that the US team in particular will produce results.

[boadicea] 29/4/2019 22:28

azioni2 - I think that is primarily an illustration of the general market dynamics of AIM rather a criticism of the company or even of its comparative rating which is actually quite reasonable in terms of p/e etc without attributing too much to the prospects of ongoing success.
In other words, if the economic roof doesn't fall in, there are a number of good bargains out there - in this and similarly placed companies with sensibly diverse markets.

[azioni2] 29/4/2019 15:19

Twelve months ago the share price was 44p..... a year later, after winning considerably larger contracts and with a more positive outlook the share price is 40.5p!!!

[azioni2] 17/4/2019 15:37

The sleeping "giant" is waking up......

With the substantial corporate tax cuts in the US there must be plenty of companies with spare cash that are well overdue an improvement in their security systems.
Do I hear that more announcements are to follow soon?

[boadicea] 17/4/2019 12:24

An interesting staircase channel has developed since the February lows. ECK is not alone in seeing an improvement which is shared with some other cybersecurity companies, notably NCC, and payment processors, e.g. UNG.

[azioni2] 20/3/2019 11:03

Possibly more people looking at what opportunities are out there and finally taking notice of the last update. The current share price seems more than justified, after all it was only 6/7 months ago that ECK was trading at 42p and considerable progress has been made since.



04 March 2019


Eckoh plc ("Eckoh")

Strong Contract Momentum Continues

Eckoh, the global provider of secure payment products and customer contact solutions, is pleased to announce it continues to experience strong contract momentum, with more than GBP10m in contract value secured since the half year (30(th) September 2018).

This reflects success in both the UK and the US in converting significant pipeline opportunities and renewals of existing contracts. The UK has benefitted particularly from its partnership channel, whilst the US has had continued traction with healthcare insurers and the retail sector.

Strong momentum in the UK

New contract wins include the largest Omnichannel agreement Eckoh has won since the acquisition of Klick2Contact in 2016. This 5-year contract, which was won in a competitive tender process, will see Eckoh provide an existing business process outsourcing partner with Omnichannel capability for one of its largest clients, with the services expected to be extended to further clients in due course.

Other new contracts include a secure payments agreement worth an initial GBP0.8m won through a longstanding telecoms partner, which will see the first implementation on behalf of a large nationwide automotive dealership. We have also entered into new contracts with two utility companies worth GBP0.4m.

Significant contracts have also been renewed including a three-year agreement for customer engagement with Vue Cinemas, and a two-year renewal with a central government department to continue providing secure payment services. These were the two largest UK contracts to come up for renewal in this financial year.

US traction continues

Building on our success with healthcare insurers we have won further secure payments contracts from this sector, all three years in length, totalling $2.6m in value. We have also signed a three-year contract with a product provider to financial institutions worth over $1m.

In the retail sector we have contracted for our patented CallGuard solution with a well-known multi-channel interiors retailer and this contract is being delivered completely through Eckoh's Cloud platform, which is hosted in Amazon Web Services.

Whilst Cloud opportunities are still much smaller in size, we do expect this to change over time, and Eckoh is the only US provider who can deliver contact centre payment security through either an on-site deployment, a hosted managed service or in the Cloud. The Group's significant US presence, together with our ability to provide completely US-based implementation teams, with ease of integration, and local support are key differentiators identified by customers.

In the Support area of Eckoh's US business, through a new partnership with a multinational technology company, we have renewed a significant contract for a telecommunications client. The partner came to Eckoh having seen the pedigree of our support services and the contract is initially worth $1.0m with the potential to increase to $2.8m depending on future support requirements.

Nik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer, said:

"After an extremely strong first half to the year, it has been very encouraging to see that momentum continue with multiple new contract wins, alongside key renewals, which underpin future market forecasts. These contract wins, with such well-known enterprises, reflects Eckoh's position as the preferred supplier for the largest companies.

We have also made excellent progress with key strategic initiatives, such as establishing a market leading position in Cloud delivery for Secure Payments, the ongoing development of our Omnichannel solution and broadening our partner relationships to accelerate our penetration of our key markets."

[mazarin] 20/3/2019 10:35

Does anyone know what lies behind today's initial 2p rise?

[zipstuck] 04/3/2019 08:17

Not bad up to February.

[hutchmeister] 04/3/2019 07:43

Very nice and welcomed trading update

[septimus quaid] 29/1/2019 20:08

Sometimes ECK put out the odd trading update. Otherwise, unless there is some "special news", the next major update will be circa mid June with the announcement of the finals.

[azioni2] 29/1/2019 14:53

The 10,000 is a BUY. We are well overdue a positive announcement...let's hope!

[septimus quaid] 18/1/2019 08:17

Been a ECK holder for years, without a constant drip of positive news updates the shareprice inevitably drifts lower.

The US venture is taking forever to yield significant results (I've lost track on how long ago that happened).

...edit, edit:

In November 2015, Eckoh acquired the US business Product Support Solutions (“PSS”), predominantly in order to support Eckoh’s continued expansion of its Secure Payments products in the US, where PSS has a significant presence.

[zipstuck] 17/1/2019 18:07

From last accounts


Current Trading:
-- Year to date new contracted business now exceeds FY18 total of GBP15.3m
-- Strong and growing pipeline in US Secure Payments, further contracts won since period end
-- Largest contract renewal secured with Vue Cinemas worth GBP2m over 3 years
-- Record visibility for second half

[rock star] 25/10/2018 07:44

Probably not the best of days to put out a positive trading update!

[boadicea] 05/10/2018 11:57

The company's general approach to product development costs appears to one of charging mainly to p&l rather than capitalising them. This avoids the risk of a heavy one-off write down if a particular project turns sour. The analysis of factors leading to the final cash flow is a more complex exercise but overall the picture here looks quite healthy and might tend to indicate that real and potential profitabilty is at least as good as claimed. I suspect that many companies wishing to emphasise growth would have chosen to guild the profit lily a little more strongly.

From the final results -
"Whilst Eckoh continue to innovate by developing new products and features such as those detailed in the Chief Executive's Review, little of this is capitalised on the balance sheet with only GBP0.3m (FY17: GBP0.2m) added in the year to the value of the intangible fixed assets of the Company. Whilst taking a prudent approach to capitalising salary cost reduces reported profit, management believes this approach gives an accurate reflection of the trading performance of the Company."

[septimus quaid] 05/10/2018 11:07

shoee62, interesting concept re p/free cash flow ratio and not one that I’ve come across, or if I have I can’t remember.

As these new “big” contracts start to generate more cash, and because ECK’s products are generally software/IT based, I don’t get the impression they will require a great deal of capital expenditure to service (hence more of the new cash flowing is “free”)?

ECK’s (imposed) switch from the Capex to Opex model seems a long time ago now.

[shoee62] 05/10/2018 10:01

Agree it looks like a seller still there.

In the FY results, they show a useful table of contract wins, and avg size for the US payments side. FY17 avg of $918k was distorted by a large win of $3.7m, so this win is going to distort it again. Avg for FY18 was $776k.

I think the market is slow to react to this with the switch from Capex to Opex pricing(Saas), plus IFRS15, deferring revenue. That is despite Saas revenue companies trading on significantly higher multiples than license and support ones.

Looking at Stockopedia, the PE number is 48, but price to free cash flow is 21 which cuts to the reality of the ability of the business to generate cash.

[septimus quaid] 03/10/2018 16:34

according to today's RNS, Kestrel unloaded circa 1.3 shares on Monday

[boadicea] 03/10/2018 09:45

There are definitely indications of someone unloading shares at round figures (41p, 42p etc.). If a single entity starting with 3%+ and sales exceed about 2.5m shares a holdings rns should emerge. Either way we may not make much progress until they have finished.

[boadicea] 01/10/2018 14:24

A quantity of shares seems to have been made availble at 41p (1.64 million). The seller may have finished at 41p so the price has moved on a bit. A similar looking sell has occurred (60k) at 42p, so may stick around this level for a time.

[boadicea] 01/10/2018 13:12

The queation sometimes becomes, Who is an insider?

If the MD, CFO or Head of Sales (etc) arranges a trip to the States (etc), there are a number of people who will know about it, e.g. his travel agent. I don't think this makes the travel agent or someone that sees his booking, an insider - he will not know who his client has arranged to see or why. He may however speculate on the importance of the trip and decide to take a positon. So there is a genuine query as to where to draw the line.

I recall a visit many years ago by some directors of GEC to a competitor company in a similar electrical field. Their car was parked discretely around the corner but was spotted by a junior employee of the visited company. It had the give-away registration number AE1 (AEI being a susidiary trading company of GEC at the time.) A bid duly followed shortly afterwards.

The answer is possibly a trading suspension pending announcement, triggered by a share price sensitivity function.

[azioni2] 01/10/2018 12:58

Long overdue......let's hope one of many new contracts win in the USA!

[septimus quaid] 01/10/2018 12:57

Good news, good coverage doing the rounds:

Eckoh wins bumper payments contract with mystery US giant



hTTtp://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/stocktube/10665/eckoh-plc-bags-its-biggest-ever-secure-payments-contract-10665.html