SimplyBiz Group plc (LON:SBIZ), a leading independent provider of compliance and business services to financial advisers and financial institutions in the UK, has today announced its audited results for the twelve months ended 31 December 2019.
Financial highlights:
- Group Revenue up 24% to £62.8m (FY18: £50.7m)
- Operating profit increased by £5.2m to £12.0m
- Adjusted EBITDA*1 up 49% to £17.0m (FY18: £11.4m)
- Adjusted EBITDA*1 margin increased to 27.1% from 22.5%
- Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) *1 increased by 15% to 13.4p
- Net debt of £27.0m at 31 December 2019, with a comfortable net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio of less than 1.6 times.
- Final dividend proposed of 2.85p per share, resulting in a full year dividend of 4.26p per share.
Operational highlights:
- Successful strategic acquisition of Defaqto
- Strong progress on software development and deployment
- Strong growth in value per intermediary customer
- Strong increase in mortgage completions
- Strong cost control maintaining strong operating margin
Matt Timmins, Joint Chief Executive Officer of The SimplyBiz Group, commented:
“We are delighted to have successfully completed the strategic acquisition and rapid integration of Defaqto and welcome these new colleagues into the SimplyBiz Group. This acquisition instantly expands the Group’s customer base by over 50% and materially extended our software and service platform across all key sectors. The acquisition enhances the Group’s strong and sustainable profit margins.”
“The Board is confident and optimistic about 2020. We are guiding to marginally lower growth in revenues and EBITDA, particularly in employee benefits and valuations, with operational gearing flowing through to earnings. We expect both headline and underlying growth to remain strong.”
*1 Adjusted EBITDA is earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation of intangible assets arising on acquisition and operating exceptional costs. Adjusted profit before and profit after tax exclude operating exceptional costs, exceptional finance charges and amortisation of intangible assets arising on acquisition. In the current year the measures have also been adjusted for the impact of adopting IFRS 16. A reconciliation of these metrics to GAAP measures is provided in note 5. Adjusted earnings per share is calculated based on adjusted profit after tax, as shown in note 9.
*2 Organic growth is defined as the year on year increase in a financial metric, excluding the impact of acquisitions.