Harvest Technology Plc

Earnings Release • Oct 27, 2021

National Storage Mechanism | Additional information

RNS Number : 3358Q

ULS Technology PLC

27 October 2021

ULS Technology plc

(The "Group" or the "Company")

Trading Update

ULS Technology plc (AIM:ULS), the provider of online digital platforms for the UK conveyancing and financial intermediary markets, is pleased to provide a trading update ahead of its Half Year Results for the six months to 30 September 2021 (the "Period").

Financial Highlights

Revenue from continuing operations during the Period was £10.2m, an increase of c.45% over the prior year during which the market was impacted by Covid-19. The underlying pre-tax loss for the period was lower than expected at approximately £1.5m as the Company accelerated its investment phase. Net cash remains high - at circa £23.0m as at 30 September 2021, with no debt.

Operational Highlights

Strengthened team

The Company's consumer-centric, data driven strategy focused on delivering value across all industry stakeholders by making it simpler, easier and more transparent to buy, sell and own a home progressed well during the Period.

This was underpinned by strengthening of the Company's management team with the key hires of Ed Mardell (Chief Technology Officer), Simon McCulloch (Chief Commercial & Growth Officer) and Angela Hesketh (Director of Conveyancing Transformation), as well as adding talent across the business - with employee numbers growing from 95 to 113 during the Period.

It is currently a challenging hiring market and we are pleased with the high calibre of executives and staff that we are attracting and who are buying in to our strategy and the significant market opportunity, bringing knowledge and expertise to our strong team.

Positive market conditions and continued product roll out

Overall, it was a positive period for the housing market, although there was some disruption due to the various stamp duty holiday deadlines, which encouraged transactions but also concentrated volumes in particular months.

The eConveyancer business grew with a number of new contracts won across a range of channels: broker, lender and B2C, and the Company continues to focus on growth in this area.

Importantly, the Company made significant progress in developing DigitalMove, which has now handled more than 60,000 Instructions. We expect further strong traction with the planned launch of a pilot of the first phase of the DigitalMove product for Estate Agents later this year. This will be the first of the Company's products to be built on the Salesforce.com platform, which has reduced the timeline to get the product to market.

The Company is also conducting a pilot enabling consumers to self-serve and start their conveyancing earlier, which is producing very encouraging results both in terms of take up by the consumer and time saved for the conveyancer.

Outlook

Demand for housing remains high and the market shows no sign of slowing particularly as interest rates remain low and employment levels high. Remortgage volumes are also on the rise as a lot of people are coming to the end of their fixed rate deals.

The Board believes that the considerable opportunity for DigitalMove to disrupt and enhance the home moving experience continues to grow, with the Company well placed to develop the platform, routes to market and revenue streams.

Jesper With-Fogstrup, CEO of ULS Technology plc, commented:   

"This has been my first complete half-year in the business and I'm delighted by the significant progress made. I am now even more certain that there is considerable opportunity to make the home moving process better for everyone, and we have the strategy and roadmap in place to be able to achieve this. We are currently at an exciting stage where we are building and testing a number of products that we will be looking to launch into the market in 2022."

Enquiries:

ULS Technology plc		Via Walbrook PR
Jesper With-Fogstrup, Chief Executive Officer
John Williams, Chief Financial Officer
Numis Securities Limited (Nomad & Broker)		Tel: 0207 260 1000
Stuart Skinner / William Wickham
Walbrook PR Limited	ulsgroup@walbrookpr.com or Tel: 020 7933 8780
Tom Cooper
Nick Rome
Nicholas Johnson

Certain information contained in this announcement would have constituted inside information (as defined by Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014) prior to its release as part of this announcement.

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