Primorus Investments PLC Investment in Engage Technology Partners Limited (4801H)

TIDMPRIM

RNS Number : 4801H

Primorus Investments PLC

13 March 2018

Primorus Investments plc

("Primorus" or the "Company")

Further GBP500,000 Investment in Engage Technology Partners Limited

Primorus Investments plc (AIM: PRIM, NEX: PRIM) is pleased to announce it has today, by way of subscription at GBP22 per share, invested a further GBP500,000 in Engage Technology Partners Limited ("Engage").

In September 2017 the Company invested, by way of subscription at GBP15 per share, GBP400,000 in Engage on a pre-new money valuation of GBP15m as part of a fully subscribed GBP5.25m funding round. Following this further subscription, Primorus will hold a total of 49,394 shares in Engage, representing circa 3.6% of the issued share capital.

The subscription price of GBP22 per share represents a 46% premium to the September 2017 placement price of GBP15 per share and represents a portion of rolling GBP4m capital raise by Engage.

Alastair Clayton, Executive Director commented - "Since our initial investment in September 2017, sales of the Engage platform have shown strong growth and we have recently been informed by management that over 44 corporate clients are signed up to the platform, thereby mandating the product use to their supply chains and service providers. Active users of the platform include large construction companies, well known high-street restaurant chains, numerous small and mid-sized agencies as well as larger labour supply companies across the UK."

He added - "As a purely SaaS offering with a now proven viral sales model, we see Engage as a priority investment for Primorus with the potential to deliver an outstanding return for our shareholders on either a trade sale and or IPO basis. Subject to available funds, Primorus will likely participate further in this rolling GBP4m raise that is due to close at the end of April/Early May. We have been informed it is the intention of Engage that this round will be the last funding round before a possible IPO and that discussions with City brokers to support an IPO in late 2018 or early 2019 have commenced."

About Engage

Founded in 2013, Engage builds software to assist with finding, hiring, compliance and paying of the rapidly growing contingent workforce in the UK. Their platform supports the entire workflow, and simultaneously services employers, recruitment agencies, payroll companies, accountants and workers. Having everyone in the supply chain sharing the same platform makes a difficult, expensive, and error-prone process simple and more cost effective.

At present the recruitment industry is fragmented by dozens of software suppliers providing only part of the functionality required, to one customer at a time. This generates duplication of effort, administration errors and fraud as data is re-keyed and passed manually between parties. Engage's solution to this is a SaaS platform hosted on Amazon Web Services, available securely via the Cloud on any internet device, by the whole market, simultaneously.

Engage is sold via a referral and viral sales model and does not have a marketing budget as part of its business model. Its directors believe it is already challenging the large enterprise-based incumbents via a low-cost SaaS model of charging GBP1.99 per worker per week.

Engage has rapidly gone from a minimally viable product to a fully saleable and scalable SaaS platform which has built up an impressive and rapidly growing customer base including many household names.

In the financial year ended 31 May 2017, Engage incurred a loss of GBP1.71m.

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of EU Regulation 596/2014 and has been arranged for release by Alastair Clayton, Executive Director of the Company.

For further information, please contact:

 
 Primorus Investments 
  plc:                        [phone] 
 Alastair Clayton 
 
 Nominated Adviser:           [phone] 
 Cairn Financial Advisers 
  LLP 
 James Caithie / Sandy 
  Jamieson 
 
 Broker:                      [phone] 
 Turner & Pope Investments 
 Andy Thacker 
 

This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

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March 13, 2018 03:00 ET (07:00 GMT)