Globaldata Share Discussion Threads

[bitterlemontart] 15/4/2005 09:03

DATA are a BUY in todays INVESTORS CHRONICLE.

[everton448] 14/4/2005 17:11

Staurt - thanks for that - a really interesting (and informed) post. I hope you will drop by from time to time with your future thoughts.

Everton

[stuart37] 14/4/2005 13:47

Data are well placed in their own niche market place which is basically large gambling sites. They decided a long time ago to go for big transaction volume players - which naturally led them to the betting industry - as opposed to client volume at the SME end of the market. They have invested a lot to ensure that their hardware is stable and resilient to the ever increasing DDOS attacks which PSP's are currently seeing from our russian mafia friends. Data are effectively 18 months to two years ahead of the competition in terms of both profitability and diversifying their product base (i.e offering chip and pin and hooking up with some major channel partners etc
However, the cons are this: the betting industry is currently flavour of the month and everyone and his dog wants a slice of the action (see earthport trying to muscle in by spinning off their subsiduary (forgoten the name!) and because data have large transaction clients but relatively few of them if they were to lose a large client it would have a disproportionate effect on their bottom line and would effectively be an instant profits warning.
Don't get me wrong - i think data is a great company and i currently hold them in my sipp - E-commerce transactions are still in their infancy and this market has a long way to go - average monthly compound growth in the PSP market is currently about 5% for CNP transactions so even if chip and Pin did not work out for data it would not be the end of the world. Real beauty is that once systems are set up and capital investment has been made then revenue from new clients goes straight to p/l - bar ongoing development costs. Not really much need to employ more staff as most things can be automated.
Excuse the length of this - quiet day!!
Regards

[everton448] 14/4/2005 13:24

Have to say I wasn't aware of that - where do you think DATA stand against the competetion?

[stuart37] 14/4/2005 11:16

Everton448,
I assume you will be aware that this type of article is paid for by Datacash. Bloor Research are well respected but - like most allegedly "independent" research groups - take the money from the client and then write the article in favour of the client.
I work within the PSP industry and have a close knowledge of all the players - Datacash, Worldpay, Protx, Secure Trading, SecPay and Netbanx etc and this guy has not done much research and hasn't really scratched the surface of the PSP marketplace. Just a thought........

[chipperfrd] 13/4/2005 11:03

Good find Everton, thanks!

[everton448] 13/4/2005 10:52

This excellent article should make holders feel positove about the future. I hold so DYOR

[cyberian] 12/4/2005 19:36

Bit of life coming into the shares today....matbe some news soon...share price looks stable (probably wrong thing to mention!!). The market area DATA operate in should be extremely active this year...

[everton448] 08/4/2005 08:35

Nice to see a bit of positive press.

[britishbear] 06/4/2005 23:24

Top sliced a few today - keeping a core holding but the PE is rather demanding relative to NLR who I feel will provide serious competition in the gambling area (that is a large % of revenues).

All my deposits to my online bookie are now done via NLR instead of credit cards so that is my business gone.

Will keep core holding and wait for C&P and possible takeover news.

[baheid101] 06/4/2005 15:36

From Growth Company Investor (BUY)

We've consistently supported DataCash, the payments service provider that rapidly improving under savvy CEO Terry Cave, who joined the business last July. Preliminary figures to December were exceptional, with adjusted profits rocketing 102% north to £1.52m, and cash more than doubling to £3.2m, thanks to the inherent cash generation of the business, allowing Cave to announce a first ever dividend of 0.5p. Turnover burgeoned 30% higher to £4.6m, which reflected continuing growth in the core 'card-holder not present' transaction volumes, which were up more than 50% year-on-year to 41m. Tellingly, DataCash processed about 8,000 transactions a day when it first joined the market back in 2000. Today 140,000 a day is the norm, rising to 250,000-plus on certain days such as major sporting events like the Grand National (clients in the important gaming sector include Ladbrokes). Over in the 'card-holder present' (chip & PIN) market, DataCash's relationship with IBM and its partners 'is showing good promise', although no contracts have yet been signed. Nevertheless, there's enough going on in the core business to excite investors. For 2005, Investec Securities' Guy Hewett upgraded his profit forecasts from £2.3m to £2.4m, giving earnings of 5.1p and a forward rating of 23. We first backed the company at 71p in Company Watch, and still see plenty of potential here. Add.

[britishbear] 06/4/2005 09:10

A mention in stockmarket reporter..

----------------------------------------

Outsourced cash processing group Datacash posted a solid set of full-year numbers - but its share still fell 8.5p to 119.5p as investors worried about its valuation. In the 12-month period to December 31st, turnover rose 30% year on year to 4.64 million pounds, with adjusted pre-tax profits before goodwill rose 102% from the 2003 level, to 1.52 million pounds. This was equivalent to an underlying earnings per share of 3.40p, which left the shares trading on an historic price/earnings multiple of 34.2, even after today's falls. The company said that it had seen a good start to 2005, with further increases in transaction activity and a healthy pipeline of target customers. The group also proposed a maiden dividend payment of 0.5p a share.

[bitterlemontart] 05/4/2005 14:50

will be payable to shareholders on the register at close of business on 20 May 2005 !

[ftsefetish] 05/4/2005 14:25

A further RNS about dividend in case you did not notice. Nothing new but here you go. Anyone going to the AGM ?

FTSE

Dividend timetable


DataCash is pleased to announce the final dividend it has declared for the year
ending 31 December 2004 of 0.5 pence per share will be payable to shareholders
on the register at close of business on 20 May 2005. The final dividend, which
is subject to approval at DataCash's AGM to be held on 24 May 2005, will be paid
on the 20 June 2005.

[melville28] 05/4/2005 11:12

good - looks like it has found the bottom. new level will probably be around 120p until the fireworks start

[baheid101] 05/4/2005 09:54

Durlacher have reiterated their buy stance, and upgraded modestly their profit forecasts (£2.4m for 05 from £2.3m, and £3.35m from £3.2m). EPS forecasts are 5.1p and 5.6p. Note that EPS growth is stunted by cessation of tax relief in 2006.

In terms of valuation, we are now (@ 117.5p) trading on 23x 2005 and 21x 2006. Given the growth rates and the potential uplifts from cardholder present and the numerous partnerships they are building this remains a buy IMHO. I also own NLR, which obviously is shooting the lights out, but I would suggest that this is considerably less risky

Cheers
BH

[melville28] 05/4/2005 09:12

dont panic - these shares have added 30% while the rest of the market rolled over and got hammered. Many people tend to take profits on fact - this simply pulls the shares back to a more attractive level allowing others to get involved for the next phase of the story (which looks very impressive for data - especially given the possible deal flow over the next 6 months). Just wait for the spivvy sellers to bail and when the price stabilises, load up for the next run to 150p.

[tamaybroke] 05/4/2005 08:57

cyber,not saying i don't have faith,just think it's overpriced based on todays results and with at least another 15% rise in costs expected.A 40% profit in a short period will do me,will get in again with a few contract announcements.

[cyberian] 05/4/2005 08:41

Silly to sell unless one is top slicing and/or trading....however, the fundamentals, solid management and huge growth will carry this share a great deal higher in time. We still have the Y/E tax situation but that will soon be over and the general markets look reasonable.

[treborbob] 05/4/2005 08:36

Tamaycroked

Who cares?

[tamaybroke] 05/4/2005 08:21

saying that i've sold out.

[tamaybroke] 05/4/2005 08:14

NOT bad, profit 1.52 million forecasts were 1.45,sales 4.64 forecasts were 4.62.

[bitterlemontart] 05/4/2005 08:00

RNS Number:6088K
Datacash Group PLC
05 April 2005


DataCash Group Plc: DATA / Index: AIM / Sector: Support Services

5 April 2005

DATACASH GROUP PLC ('DataCash' or 'the Company')

FINAL RESULTS



DataCash Group Plc, the AIM listed payments service provider, announces its
results for the 12 months to 31 December 2004.

* Turnover up 30% to #4.64m (2003: #3.58m)
* Adjusted pre-tax profit * up 102% to #1.52m (2003: #752,000) - equivalent
to an underlying EPS of 3.40p (2003:1.71p)
* Strong cash balance of #3.21m (2003: #1.55m)
* Continued strong growth of the core Card Holder Not Present transaction
processing business - transaction volumes increased by more than 50%
year-on-year
* Ongoing investment in technology infrastructure and new product offerings
* Gaming sector continues to play an important role but strong growth also
from retail customers - other sectors such as travel and ticketing should
provide additional growth
* Good start to 2005 with further increases in transaction activity and a
healthy pipeline of target customers
* Maiden dividend payment of 0.5p per share proposed

* before goodwill amortisation, National Insurance provision on share option
gain and exceptional items.


CHAIRMAN'S STATEMENT



2004 was another encouraging year for DataCash and, as well as increasing
pre-tax profits, before goodwill amortisation, National Insurance provision on
share option gain and exceptionals ("Adjusted pre-tax profits") by over 100% and
more than doubling our net cash balances, I am pleased to announce that we are
able to propose the first ever dividend of 0.5p per share, from the Group.

Turnover grew from #3.58m to #4.64m in 2004, reflecting the continued growth of
the core business of Card Holder Not Present transaction processing. Costs also
increased as we recruited a Chief Executive and additional sales staff to enable
strong future revenue growth as well as investing in our technology
infrastructure to provide enhanced service and support to our existing
customers. Adjusted pre-tax profits grew by 102% to #1.52m (2003: #752,000) and
underlying earnings per share were 3.40p (2003: 1.71p). We continue to benefit
from accumulated tax losses. Cash balances grew by #1.66m and at 31st December
2004 were #3.21m (2003: #1.55m).

Despite the historic tax losses, the Group has some modest distributable
reserves, and the Board recommends a maiden dividend be paid out of 2004
earnings of 0.5p per share.

The core Card Holder Not Present (CNP) payment processing business of DataCash
grew strongly in 2004, and transaction volumes increased by more than 50%
year-on-year from 27 million to 41 million. That growth rate has continued so
far in 2005.

Our clients, especially in the gaming arena, are requiring increasingly
sophisticated and varied solutions to their global business needs. We have
recently announced new product offerings, through our partners, in the areas of
Identity Verification and Chargeback Management. These together with other
initiatives in, for example, international payments and dynamic currency
conversion, are expected to provide new revenue opportunities from both our
existing and prospective customers.

In 2004 we continued to invest in our production systems in order to provide the
world-class reliability, functionality and overall service that our customers
require.

Our strategy in the Card Holder Present (CHP) market has been to sell via
partners and here our relationship with IBM and its partners is showing good
promise. We remain committed to offering a complete solution to the payment
processing needs of customers who have both an online and high street presence.
We believe that our CHP solution offers significant benefits to particular
segments of the market and are confident that our investment will reap rewards.

None of the achievements of 2004 could have been achieved without the commitment
and talent of our employees (36 people as at 31st December 2004). The Board and
I would like to thank them for their contribution.

Jane Reedy, who was a founder of Corporate Executive Search International, the
AIM-listed company into which DataCash merged in March 2000, has indicated her
desire to step down from the Board at the AGM in May, although she will remain
an employee with the Group, performing her vital role of new business
introduction. She has been on the Board since 1997, and I would like to take
this opportunity to thank her for the contributions she has made in that period.

2005 has begun strongly and the Board of DataCash Group believe that this will
be another successful year of progress for your Company.




David Bailey
Chairman



CHIEF EXECUTIVE'S REPORT

When I joined DataCash in July 2004 I was encouraged to find a Card Holder Not
Present business that had a strong market position in the UK, reliable
technology, growing revenues and plenty of opportunity for growth. Like all
service businesses our reputation with customers is key, and I found DataCash
had, given the fragmented marketplace, a good reputation. Our gaming customers,
in particular, demand very high reliability, service availability and
increasingly broad functionality. DataCash has built its reputation on providing
a rapid and reliable response to these demands.

My task is to build on the achievements so far and develop a platform for
increasing our revenue growth, our range of services and enhancing our
reputation with both existing and prospective customers.

The number of transactions processed in 2004 grew by more than 50% from 27m to
41m. Interestingly, when DataCash first came to the market in March 2000, it
processed about 8,000 transactions per day. We now process about 140,000 on a
normal day, with exceptional days exceeding 250,000 transactions.

DataCash's Card Holder Not Present (CNP) business continued to perform well in
2004 with adjusted pre-tax profits up over 100% to #1.52m (before goodwill
amortisation, National Insurance provision on share option gain and
exceptionals) and revenues up by #1.07m to #4.64m. The National Insurance
provision relates to employer's NI on share option gains. This liability will
not occur on any new share options issued in future.

The majority of the revenue growth was from transactions and we expect further
good growth in transaction volumes in 2005. Although the vast majority of these
transactions related to standard credit and debit card processing, we were
encouraged by the growth of transactions from our other products including
direct debits and direct credits which in total grew by 300% to 840,000. These
products act as revenue streams and also as differentiators from our
competitors.

While the majority of our transactions continue to come from the gaming sector
and growth from our gaming customers has been strong, the relative importance of
other vertical market sectors grew. In particular we saw strong growth from our
retail customers. Other sectors such as travel and ticketing should provide
further non-gaming related growth in 2005.

The different requirements of sectors such as travel and ticketing has resulted
in DataCash further developing its 'partner' model to enable us to more
effectively target sectors where either the end-users are individually too small
for DataCash to deal with directly or where there is a requirement to integrate
with an industry standard 'platform' where payments are an embedded part of that
solution. Consequently DataCash has been recruiting personnel with experience of
selling via the partner model to further exploit the exciting opportunities in
these sectors.

During the year DataCash continued to add to its product set by developing both
new products and services and continuing to integrate with 'best of breed' third
party services that are accessible by customers through a single integration
with the DataCash Payment Gateway. These enhancements and extensions help
differentiate DataCash from its direct competitors and provide evidence of the
advantages of the outsourced ASP model. We currently offer fraud screening, 3D
Secure services, chargeback management, gift vouchers and age/identity
verification. Further products such as Dynamic Currency Conversion and links to
a variety of payment 'wallets' are expected to be added shortly.

Some of our customers are increasingly requiring an international dimension to
the payment service, in particular the gaming, e-tail and travel sectors. This
functionality is being added by developing commercial relationships with
partners where transactional volumes are not significant enough to warrant
direct development of these services. Integration with payment wallets is part
of this strategy, solving the problem of taking payments in the more remote part
of the world where direct integration with the banking networks is not
justifiable for cost or practical reasons.

In our statements in 2004 we talked about our efforts to make inroads into the
Card Holder Present (CHP) market. We have completed the initial phase of our
strategy, which is to build, deliver and maintain an outsourced, hosted payment
platform. We are now signing up a number of channel partners which will extend
the IBM and Triangle relationships announced last year. These partners will use
the DataCash processing platform as a key component in a fully integrated point
of sale solution to address the CHP market. We are confident this strategy will
deliver good revenue opportunities though we cannot announce any contracts at
this stage. A large part of our mid-tier retail target market is still reviewing
the various options, and there are very specific market opportunities where our
proposition is particularly suitable.

Operationally DataCash had another good year with minimal system downtime. This
remains one of the differentiators to our service.

The most significant infrastructure investment DataCash made in the last year
was in the deployment of a second independent payment gateway designed to
further enhance our system availability and reliability and to eliminate
maintenance and upgrade downtime. During 2004 we also implemented DDoS attack
prevention measures, built an MPLS backbone between the two data centres,
developed a CHP solution so that we are now Chip and PIN enabled and invested in
additional operations staff to further reinforce our operational excellence.

This investment, along with the expansion of our salesforce and management,
increased costs from 2003 by approximately 13% to #3.2m. A similar increase in
our cost base is expected in 2005.

2005 has started well, with further increases in transaction activity and a good
pipeline of target customers. DataCash is in a strong position, with rising cash
balances and good profitable revenue growth. It is also pleasing that we have
been able to announce our first dividend payment out of our 2004 earnings. The
Group is looking to the future with confidence.



Terry Cave
Chief Executive

[melville28] 05/4/2005 07:33

looks like a very good set of results to me! Great profit and cash growth and starting to pay a dividend - always a good sign for belief in future. Strong start to 2005. Key is that there are talking about widening relationships with a number of parties outside gaming (i.e. expect news flow on new deals similar to those announced last week) and the chip and pin proposition is set up to deliver just as its key retail target base is now starting to look at solutions - this could transform profitability very quickly. That recent newsletter targetting 200p this year looks spot on!

[britishbear] 04/4/2005 20:02

Markets are so poor at the moment - DAT release good results and get pounded.

DATA will have to really release some good figures to get much of a rise - I suspect a lot will already be in the price.

Let us hope...

It is really all about the forward looking statement and whether they are up beat about Chip and pin. Any aquisition talk would also be of interest.