Ideagen Share Discussion Threads

[multibagger] 23/3/2017 07:17

Another cracking and revenue enhancing acquisition :)


Ideagen plc

("Ideagen" or the "Company")

Acquisition of PleaseTech Ltd ("PleaseTech")

Placing to raise GBP10m and sale of existing shares

Ideagen, a leading supplier of Information Management Software to highly regulated industries, is pleased to announce the conditional acquisition of PleaseTech for an initial net consideration of GBP10m (on a cash-free, debt-free basis) and a potential further consideration of up to GBP2m dependent on the attainment of specified performance targets in the six months after completion (the "Acquisition").

The initial upfront consideration for the Acquisition will be financed by an oversubscribed Placing to raise GBP10m at 75 pence per New Ordinary Share (as defined and further explained below).

Acquisition highlights

-- PleaseTech is a fast growing, profitable and cash generative software company having developed the leading document review and co-authoring product PleaseReview;

-- PleaseReview is used within document intensive environments to reduce the time and cost associated with the production of content and ensure compliance with industry regulations;

-- PleaseTech has approximately 185 customers including 17 of the top 25 pharmaceutical companies;

-- Based in Malmesbury, PleaseTech currently employs 30 staff in the UK with a further 16 Research and Development staff in Malaysia;

-- PleaseTech achieved revenue and EBITDA of GBP3.9m and GBP1.3m for the year ended 31 December 2016 respectively, an increase in revenue of 45% and EBITDA of 72% on the previous financial year;

-- The Acquisition is in line with the Group's strategy of acquiring complementary businesses with strong IP and recurring revenues;

-- PleaseReview will be integrated with Ideagen's Quality Management System Q-Pulse to provide enhance functionality to existing and new customers;

-- The Acquisition and the Placing are expected to be earnings enhancing for Ideagen shareholders in the coming financial year to 30 April 2018.

David Hornsby, CEO of Ideagen, commented:

"We are delighted to announce the acquisition of PleaseTech. Its PleaseReview software is a valuable addition to Ideagen's product suite and is in line with our stated acquisition strategy. PleaseTech both increases Ideagen's footprint in two of its key verticals and broadens its customer base geographically whilst providing valuable cross-selling opportunities and additional sources of recurring revenues. We are delighted to have received commitments to raise GBP10m, in an oversubscribed placing, to fund the acquisition from both our existing shareholder base and from new significant institutional shareholders, their support endorses Ideagen's growth strategy.

Placing and the Sale

The Board further announces an oversubscribed conditional placing (the "Placing") to raise gross proceeds of GBP10.0m at a price of 75 pence per new ordinary share of 1p each ("Placing Price" and "New Ordinary Shares"), the proceeds of which will be deployed to fund the initial upfront consideration for the Acquisition.

Furthermore, certain directors and senior management of the Company ("Selling Shareholders") intend later today to exercise, in aggregate, 2,205,000 share options (the majority of which relate to the Company's existing Long Term Incentive Plan, as announced on 23 July 2015 ("2015 LTIP")). It is expected that, in aggregate, up to 1,160,000 New Ordinary Shares will then immediately be sold at the Placing Price by these persons to meet the tax and NI liability arising from the exercise of such options. David Hornsby, Chief Executive Officer of the Company, also intends to sell up to 801,500 Ordinary Shares at the Placing Price per share. The sale of the aggregate 1,961,500 Ordinary Shares by the Selling Shareholders (the "Sale" and the "Sale Shares") is conditional on completion of the Placing. The Placing is not conditional upon completion of the Acquisition.

The Acquisition

PleaseTech has developed and provides a proprietary software product PleaseReview, aimed at providing simultaneous, controlled, and secure collaboration for document review, co-authoring and redaction, incorporating an audit trail of transparency and accountability. PleaseReview has been recognised by Gartner who say the product 'tackles long-standing coordination, collaboration and peer review challenges faced by teams every day regarding group writing, reviewing and editing documents in a way that transforms a complicated, burdensome experience into a more efficient and controlled process'.

PleaseTech is headquartered in Wiltshire and has a research and development facility in Malaysia. PleaseTech's sector-focused customer list of 185 includes 17 out of the 25 top global pharmaceutical companies, and global aerospace and defence companies.

The Acquisition broadens Ideagen's relationships in existing core sectors (life sciences, aerospace and defence), enhances Ideagen's geographic customer footprint (particularly in the US), provides an additional source of recurring revenue and is in line with Ideagen's stated strategy of adding complementary compliance software with significant cross sales potential.

Long Term Incentive Plan

The Board intend to establish a 2017 Long Term Incentive Plan ("2017 LTIP") to succeed the 2015 LTIP and will shortly make awards to certain of the participants in the 2015 LTIP.

Further details of the Acquisition, Placing and Sale are set out below.


Enquiries:

Ideagen plc Tel: [phone]
David Hornsby, Chief Executive
Graeme Spenceley, Finance Director


finnCap (Nominated Adviser and Broker) Tel: [phone]
Stuart Andrews / Henrik Persson / James Thompson (Corporate Finance)
Stephen Norcross (Corporate Broking)

[rivaldo] 23/3/2017 07:16

Big £10m earnings-enhancing acquisition - and funded by a placing at 75p :o))

I suspect the share price will soon be back to 78p-80p.

Based on the PBT figures for 2015, I suspect the 2016 figures see PleaseTech acquired on a historic P/E of only 9 or 10. By the time the CEO and CFO leave during the coming year to 30/4/18, and with other savings etc, the P/E will probably drop even further.

Lots of recurring income, and high overseas income too, which should bring in currency benefits this year.

The placing was also oversubscribed enough to allow the CEO and some directors to slot some options and shares, which I don't begrudge at all given their success over time.

Excellent news all round.

[yump] 22/3/2017 11:06

Oh look, its doing what its always done. Spike up to a full p/e, settle down at half way to wait for the next results. Nice old-fashioned behaviour !

[bamboo2] 15/3/2017 16:25

Bought back in this afternoon. Looks like a flag forming. Potential turn noted for 23 March.
edit, i'd suggest that all the 77.4 trades were buys.

[rivaldo] 15/3/2017 11:02

Cheers jimbo - here's a proper link:



Looks quite sizeable - worth noting:

"The a2 Milk Company (a2MC) , the international dairy nutritional company, is to roll out a cloud-based software solution from Ideagen as its global quality management system.

Ideagen Coruson, Ideagen’s Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) software solution, will be implemented across the company’s sites in Australia, America, China and the UK."

[jimbobaroony] 14/3/2017 09:02

www.ideagen.com/company/news/the-a2-milk-company-choose-ideagen-coruson-for-qms/

Another new customer...

[jimbobaroony] 07/3/2017 12:07

Not sure. Fingers crossed for the regular steady progress though

[rivaldo] 01/3/2017 07:21

Interesting RNS today - Vind LV have become major shareholders, buying another 3m shares and now holding 8.3m, or 4.55%. They're Norwegian and that's about all I can find:

[cheshire man] 28/2/2017 09:22

Thanks for posting that rivaldo,,,,,,ticking up again this morning :-)

[rivaldo] 27/2/2017 08:55

IDEA looking to the Middle East and hosting a seminar in Dubai about risk-based management/Q-Pulse software:

[bamboo2] 25/2/2017 10:38

Took profit on the trade earlier this week, but I may have been too eager!

[jimbobaroony] 24/2/2017 17:31

Petewy,

No, I only ever held Datum shares on plus before they changed to ideagen. Was a bit alarmed to be honest as for months, my trade was the most recent one. Different times now thankfully! I have added along the way..

[multibagger] 24/2/2017 16:26

Strong finish today :)

[rivaldo] 23/2/2017 10:07

Petewy, no, none traded solely on ISDX (formerly PLUS, which is now Nex)!.

FYI here's IDEA's full release re the launch of Ideagen Coruson:



"Ideagen launch new enterprise safety management and incident reporting software, Ideagen Coruson
22 February 2017

Ideagen unveils “definitive and visionary” product in re-brand of flagship software application

Software firm Ideagen is delighted to announce it has launched Ideagen Coruson – a definitive and visionary re-brand of its enterprise safety management and incident reporting software.

Gael Enlighten, a cloud-based software solution used by some of the world’s leading brands including Virgin Trains, Telefonica and Haeco Group will be known as Ideagen Coruson from the 22nd February 2017.

The re-brand project comes as Ideagen seeks to align its product portfolio following several successful acquisitions in recent years. The Gael Enlighten software was part of the intellectual property purchased in the £18 million acquisition of Gael Ltd in December, 2014.

Ideagen CEO, David Hornsby, said the time had come to “retire” the Gael brand.

He added: “We are delighted to announce the renaming of Gael Enlighten to Ideagen Coruson which will modernise the product brand and bring it into conformity with the rest of our product suite.

“As an important part of Ideagen’s portfolio of governance, risk and compliance applications, Coruson has matured over the past two years and has many high-profile customers.

“The application is fully productised, commercialised, and generally available and, given its visionary nature, the time has come to retire the Gael brand name and launch the definitive version of the product brand.

“These are exciting times for Ideagen as an organisation and we are looking forward to Ideagen Coruson playing an integral part of the company’s future success.”

Ideagen Coruson is currently used by some of the world’s leading brands as well as organisations with extensive global reach including the UK Rail Safety & Standards Board, Haeco, Virgin Trains, Johnson Matthey, Air Transat, Telefonica and A2 Milk.

Ben Dorks, Ideagen’s Chief Customer Officer, said: “This is an exciting announcement and an ambitiously significant re-brand of one of our most prominent, market leading products.

"We are delighted that the re-branding project has been welcomed by our customers. Ideagen Coruson comes with a fresh new colour palette and appearance, but the popular architecture and roadmap of the software remains entirely the same and this cements its place as the most user-friendly enterprise cloud safety and incident reporting software on the market."

[yump] 22/2/2017 16:41

Its a rebranding to 'Corusion', to stop using 'Enlighten' as that was a Gael product. Makes sense. Reminded me of Engrish.com, but that's probably my warped and slightly xenophobic sense of humour. I know its not allowed anymore, but sometimes...

[painter] 22/2/2017 10:22

A frowned! Strong stuff from that bunch of toothless bar stewards jimbo.

[yump] 22/2/2017 10:21

Calm down people, its probably just a bit of PR.

[jimbobaroony] 22/2/2017 08:30

Wonder what it could be? nothing considered share price sensitive surely,
as that would be frowned on by the regulators

[cheshire man] 21/2/2017 14:31

Ideagen Plc ‏@Ideagen_Plc 3h3 hours ago

1 day to go! Tune in to Ideagen's social media pages at 11.30am (GMT) tomorrow for the big reveal. pic.twitter.com/kWmoAh5ywL

[rivaldo] 21/2/2017 14:28

Good spot droid - something to look forward to.

[droid] 21/2/2017 12:58

Company's Twitterfeed says there is a big reveal tomorrow - a new product unveiling ?
Might axplain the rising share price

[cheshire man] 21/2/2017 12:20

Some decent buy's pushing up up again today I see :-)

[rivaldo] 20/2/2017 14:56

More new highs now, and ticking up again today despite two 200k trades at 76.5p