Gresham Technologies Share Discussion Threads

[richjp] 29/12/2017 18:45

crazycanuck, I spent around thirty years in sales in the IT industry and I can assure that what I said does happen.

I perhaps should have been clearer in what I meant by the last weeks of the year. The last practical business date this year would have been Friday 22nd December, after which indeed everybody goes on holiday. In other words the first three weeks of December would have been manic. Buyers and sellers in the IT industry all know this. Suppliers have targets to meet and because of that, buyers know that there are deals to be done. The result is that anyone involved in the supplier decision making process will make themselves available. Both sides work to the same deadline.

[crazycanuck] 29/12/2017 18:17

Richjp, it is extremely rare to close a deal at the end of the calendar year as most of senior Mgmt is on holiday. Deals might close at the end of a company's fiscal year end end but there is little activity at this time of year and hencei for one am suspicious of the timing of this announcement although am certainly glad to see a big deal like this get signed. It should also keep quantas's negative postings from this board.

CTC is recognized as one of the best rec tools on the market but I was expecting slot more signings and therefore a substantial increase in revenue. I understand that the big players are also working to incorporate some of the CTC functionality into their products. Anyway, let's see what the Jan 9th trading update has to say.

[miti 1000] 29/12/2017 18:08

Valhamos..your post 6865 is spot on.

As a previous poster said they obviously announced this deal today to include it in the financial year 2017 , nothing unusual in that.

[valhamos] 29/12/2017 17:38

There have been one or two contract wins in Europe since the investment last year in pursuing European business but presumably this deal with a Nordic financial services group is the largest so far. Good to see this investment paying off.


Gottafly - investor in GHT since February with one brief post (6642) before today.

[double double] 29/12/2017 17:09

This is not a typical stock for trading. Very far from it. Clutching at straws there.

[richjp] 29/12/2017 16:49

Valhamos, I am another that is more than happy with the news flow.

As far as I am concerned there are far too many small cap companies that are forever making announcements with CEO's over promoting their companies, only for it all to end in tears when the financials come out. It's a small cap company with a small free float so it is no surprise to me that the share price can be volatile, although I feel the pain as much as anybody when we get the drops. If the company were to make more announcements, all that would happen would be that the share price would get over stretched to be followed by even bigger falls than we have seen before. Maybe some of those wanting more updates are in fact trying to trade the share, rather than being the longer term investors they profess to be.

I have said before that lots of deals get closed in the IT industry in the last weeks of the year and this looks like one of them. I don't think the timing of the announcement is as important as some seem to think, as that anybody be they PIs or professionals that are following the company will pick it up soon anyway.

[gottafly] 29/12/2017 16:34

Valhamos - welcome lets have some more postings from your good-self, are you a new investor, if so welcome to the roller coaster called GHT.

[valhamos] 29/12/2017 15:33

There is some really strange whinging on this board! This must put people off from posting more often. It certainly does me.

"Certainly some good cheer to end the year but like dd I remain concerned about the information flow and the share price movement. those who sold out due to the recent share price 'price drop' have some justification to be aggrieved."

We had a trading update as recently as October and if anyone sold because of the price drop they cannot complain.

A lot of nonsense being posted on this board imo about 'lack of information'. Just as a corrective I am quite happy with the flow of information.

[gottafly] 29/12/2017 15:02

jadetcll3 the trading update is being released on the same day as last year - January 9 - so some consistency there.

Agree the results are what count but GHT should do more regarding information flow, they acknowledged it was an issue and would do something about but they have not, this is very disappointing.

[jadeticl3] 29/12/2017 14:27

Whilst I agree with all the negativity on this site regarding the news flow I still have a great feeing about the prospects of this business.
In the final analysis the share price will be governed by actual results and not by the news flow. We now know when these results will be announced, which is sooner than I expected, so I am hoping this means, at the least, that all is well. I am pleased that they are not announcing the results at 4.25pm on Friday 5th January!

[gottafly] 29/12/2017 12:35

It does seem a strange time to announce it, especially as it is a European sale when one would have thought the traditional Christmas December 'closed period' would have meant no major signings. I would add however that the only predictable thing about GHT is that it is unpredictable!

I cannot see this as anything other than great news, the wording of recognising half the revenue immediately with the remainder being allocated to 'planned 2017 revenues and beyond' is interesting. It is a full RNS (not a Reach) and so says to me this is additional revenue that GHT had to announce. Assuming this adds £.5 million directly to the bottom line for 2017 then I think we can look forwards to an over achievement of the 2017 numbers by 10% or so - thankfully not long to wait until January 9th for the trading update.

The wording of the announcement for an RNS seems somewhat detailed and technical, it is almost like a press release and those in the industry will certainly know who the Nordic bank is, my guess given the Euro nature of the deal is Nordea.

Certainly some good cheer to end the year but like dd I remain concerned about the information flow and the share price movement. those who sold out due to the recent share price 'price drop' have some justification to be aggrieved. It is also interesting that the share price started to rise yesterday on no real share volume!

[double double] 29/12/2017 12:25

I wouldnt try and read too much into why this was announced as apposed to others were not. We have tried work this out before. My guess is probably to justify employing the teaboy.

[planit2] 29/12/2017 12:10

Sounds to me that they are counting sales in this financial year which meant the news needed to go out today.

Does this mean that the current year forecasts are going to be exceeded or do we think they needed this win to match forecasts?
The fact that they sent this one out means that there are no others not counted at this level or above. I am somewhat disappointed at that as I assumed they were waiting until results to disclose the new contract wins.

A positive point seems to be that there has been a migration towards selling systems that are much more embedded with a full feature set to clients. This will make it much easier to sell similar installations in the future. It does seem that the solutions they are selling are very good. Just got to convince all the potential customers.

[crazycanuck] 29/12/2017 11:26

Great news but totally agree with you. Why announce on last business day of year when markets very quiet. Surely this could have waited until next week.

[double double] 29/12/2017 09:59

As usual Greshams timing is rubbish.

29 December 2017

Gresham Technologies plc

Significant CTC banking contract win in Europe

Gresham Technologies plc (LSE: "GHT", "Gresham" or the "Group"), the leading software and services company that specialises in providing real-time transaction control and enterprise data integrity solutions, is pleased to announce a significant contract win with one of the largest financial services groups in the Nordic region.

The bank will use Clareti Transaction Control (CTC) as part of a modernisation programme in its wholesale banking operations. The Clareti platform will ensure the robust, consistent and reliable implementation of a strategic control framework across the bank and will enable the bank's multi-national processing operations to move towards a shared services model, reducing cost through increased automation.

The customer will deploy CTC to replace local manual processes, existing reconciliation legacy systems and internal user developed applications. Clareti 24 Adapters will be used to integrate complex financial messaging data flows for SWIFT and FpML transactions, and Clareti Analytics has been selected to provide operational and risk management insights to improve performance.

The contract has an initial value of approximately EUR 2 million, around half of which is immediately recognisable, with the remainder to be recognised over the initial five-year term of the contract, contributing to planned revenues in 2017 and beyond. There is potential for consulting services revenue as well as additional licence revenue in future years as the bank's use of the platform grows.

Gresham expects to provide a trading update for the year ending 31 December 2017 on 9 January 2018.

[double double] 28/12/2017 12:51

We could get a trading update within a few weeks. Below is a reminder why i think the share price is too low.

The Group's flagship Clareti Transaction Control (CTC) offering continues to drive growth. Gresham expects to report that, for the six months ended 30 June 2017:

· Group revenues will be up 26% compared to the same period in 2016.

· Total Clareti revenues will be up 52% including the contribution from C24 Technologies Ltd ("C24") acquired in October 2016 (35% excluding C24).

· Clareti software revenues will be up 136% (101% excluding C24).

· Adjusted EBITDA will be strongly ahead of the same period in 2016 and remains in line with management expectations for the year.

Net cash at 30 June 2017 was £7.7m (30 June 2016: £3.9m) including a material one-off working capital difference (£1.7m), term deposits (£0.6m) and the expected deferred consideration payable in October 2017 and April 2018 for the acquisition of C24 (up to £1.1m).

[miti 1000] 28/12/2017 11:07

With news approaching in January , added another 25k.

[amt] 12/12/2017 21:50

The same happened a year ago to the extent I sold part of my holding only for upbeat news in the results and the share price doubling. So just because there is no news doesnt mean the business has not taken off in a big way.

[gottafly] 12/12/2017 10:17

dd, agree the lack of information is concerning, especially as this has been pointed out to the company who said there were addressing it but nothing has happened.

It is easy to become downbeat, dare I say annoyed, when the share price slips and the information flow continues to be pretty close to zero.

On the surface it does appear that the GHT momentum has slowed and perhaps even stalled - it certainly seems that GHT management are very busy/focused on something which is certainly not communications to investors. So the N1Singer 2018 forecast (just 7% growth), which was generally thought of on here as 'wrong', is looking more likely by the day.

Whilst GHT have increased their Tweet activity, this now seems to be their preferred communication medium, other activity is dropping.

For example, GHT press releases have dropped off (not that they were plentiful in the first place):-

H1 2016 - 6
H2 2016 - 7
H1 2017 - 7
H2 2017 - 3!!!!

Another example is Blog entries - 40 in 2016 and thus far just 3 in 2017, the last Blog being in May, more than six months ago!

It seems that the information flow is getting less and as you say dd, this is imply not good enough. Again GHT had the opportunity to say something at the general meeting yesterday but did not.

[double double] 12/12/2017 08:37

I think its the same old lack of information from the company which leaves the market in the dark. I am sure they have not fallen off a cliff since interims. All their activity now are apparently immaterial and not worthy of announcement and sharing with investors. So we wait every 6 months to get an update. Maybe 30 years ago it was done this way, but for a tech company in 2017 not good enough.

[jadeticl3] 11/12/2017 21:22

Have to say, when the price shot up from 180 (with which I was well satisfied) to 207 I never dreamed it would fall back to 171 with no bad news annouced? Does not make sense to me. Were some who thought they were in the know expecting very good news to be released, only to recognise that did not happen? Were some who were in the know expecting deals to be clinched that were not? How else can this fall away so markedly when the latest real news was nothing bad?

I remain optimistic, and will do so unless real news disappoints.

[gottafly] 08/12/2017 12:10

Interesting post on iii which suggests this as a possible reason the share price moved - hxxps://baxternewsreview.com/gresham-computing-plc-ght-l-following-the-numbers/339257/

Not sure I understand it except that perhaps the recent trades - there have been a lot at low value - is perhaps computer model driven?

[gottafly] 08/12/2017 08:13

richjp agree that it is normal for IT companies (particularly in Finance/Banking) to have a yearly initiative to motivate the (particularly sales) team, Like you, I have been in the industry and so am familiar with this process, at times though it is 'fluff and nonsense' and has little real impact.

GHT have confirmed that this phrase - Challenger to Champion - was originated by the staff, a great slogan and shows confidence, commitment and determination by the staff. By the way I should say that I think the GHT staff are the key driver for the company, having for the most part been acquired from direct competitors, keeping the team focused and upbeat is critical.

The difference with the Challenger to Champion tag is that management have adopted it as a marketing and promotional tool, it seems to appear on all their investor presentation material. So yes I do go on about it because I think it is a significant statement made by the management albeit having originated by the staff.

The importance of the staff is further underlined in the proposed Share Bonus Plan, whilst I cheekily suggested that a drop in the share price was good for GHT (Bonus Plan) staff in the short-term, the long-term incentive/upside is clearly linked to substantial share price increases. A deferred share bonus plan simply doesn't work unless you get significant upside as a reward for the deferment. This plan has not really been mentioned here but I think it is another key step in the GHT journey.

[richjp] 07/12/2017 17:22

Gottafly you keep mentioning the Challenger to Champion thing and I think all along you have been trying to read too much into it.

For almost thirty years that I know of, it has been common for IT companies to begin their year with what they usually call a kick-off meeting, whereby they gather all the sales and support staff together, apart from those essential support staff that have to give ongoing support to the clients, for a major motivational meeting. At those meetings there will be a theme and I believe that is what Challenger to Champion slogan is all about.

They were clearly never going to take over their target market in a single year. In the past they only went after niche opportunities within major accounts. This year we know they took on an incumbent supplier in a major account for a major application and won. That is what I suspect the idea of becoming a champion is about. They no longer are just looking for niche opportunities. They can take on anybody and win and be a champion in that context.

I am content with the frequency and content of the updates they have given. The half year and Q3 updates were given in timely fashion and of course we had the investor presentations in the summer.

Today was very nasty indeed for me with the money I have in GHT, however I feel we have to recognise that GHT is a small cap stock and there are times when the share price can move swiftly in either direction. One of the directors said just that at one of the meetings I attended. I think we just have to keep our nerve, easier said than done I know and wait for the January trading update.