BLACKBIRD PLC — Earnings Release 2016

Mar 13, 2017

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RNS Number : 2141Z

Forbidden Technologies PLC

13 March 2017

13 March 2017

Forbidden Technologies plc

("Forbidden" or the "Company")

Preliminary Results

Forbidden Technologies plc (AIM: FBT), the AIM-quoted owner and developer of Forscene (the market-leading cloud video platform) announces its preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2016. 

Financial Summary

·      Invoiced sales up 42% to £1,007,074 (2015: £707,502)

·      Revenue up 9% to £774,825 (2015: £708,717)

·      Deferred revenue up 593% to £270,321 (2015: £39,004)

·      Year-on-year operational spend, including capital expenditure, reduced by £472,975

·      EBITDA loss of £1,787,406 (2015: £2,085,750)

·      £4,007,101 received from the issues of new shares in the year, net of costs

·      Debt free with cash and cash equivalents of £3,711,033 (2015: £1,675,695)

Operational Highlights

·      Further growth in invoiced sales and revenue, with higher growth in the second half compared to the first half of the year

·      Year on year growth in sports revenues of 39% and international sales of 17%

·      Organisation reshaped with a strong commercial focus

·      Re-positioning of products into one cloud video platform, Forscene to strengthen our solutions offer

·      Two successful fundraisings during the year 

Post period highlights

·      Multi-year deal with deltatre

·      Launch of Blackbird 9

David Main, Forbidden Technologies Chairman, commented:

"After achieving year on year invoiced sales growth in the first half of 2016 of 25%, we accomplished 59% growth in the second half of the year. This encouraging upwards trend shows the progress we are making, and we have confidence in our ability to continue building the business in this direction.

"During 2016, we successfully raised over £4 million on the strength of the opportunity available to us, and with the growth in our sales team, we enter 2017 well positioned to take advantage of it. Market trends continue to move in our favour, and I look forward to reporting further progress in the coming months as we continue to build and convert our pipeline and move towards cash generation and profitability.

"We are actively engaged in the search for a new CEO with significant commercial and growth company experience and will update the market in due course."

Enquiries:

Forbidden Technologies plc


David Main, Chairman

Jonathan Lees, Chief Financial Officer

Tel: +44 (0)20 8879 7245

Allenby Capital Limited (Nominated Adviser and Broker)

Nick Naylor

John Depasquale

Richard Short

Katrina Perez

Tel: +44 (0)20 3328 5656

Redleaf Communications (Financial PR Adviser)

Rebecca Sanders-Hewett

David Ison

Susie Hudson

Tel: +44 (0)20 7382 4730

Email: [email protected]

About Forbidden Technologies plc



Forbidden Technologies plc (AIM: FBT, www.forbidden.co.uk) floated in February 2000.

Company develops and markets a powerful cloud video platform with multiple applications which can be used by rights holders, broadcasters, sports and news video specialists, post-production houses, other mass market digital video channels, corporates and consumers. The platform applications help customers improve their time to market on time sensitive content, and efficiently exploit the full value of their content.

Websites:

www.forbidden.co.uk

www.forscene.com

Social media:

www.facebook.com/FORscene

www.plus.google.com/+Forscenepro/posts

www.linkedin.com/company/forscene

www.twitter.com/forscenepro

www.youtube.com/user/ForsceneTraining

The

Chairman's Statement

Executive Summary

We stated that our intention was to make 2016 the year we begin to see sales traction. I am pleased to report that this objective has been clearly accomplished and we continue to move in the right direction, as evidenced by year on year invoiced sales growth of 42%, or 25% in H1 and 59% in H2.

In order to establish and grow this sales momentum, we made several positive changes to the structure of the organisation in the period, most notably trebling the size of our sales team from two to six people.

The market opportunity for Forbidden is increasingly compelling, with trends continuing to move in our favour driven largely by the growing adoption of cloud video storage for professional content and a growing focus on sports. Some of the most high-profile and demanding events in the world used our platform to rapidly produce clips and highlights packages from their content in 2016, such as the Paralympics, Wimbledon, and the UEFA Champions League.

Forbidden is now a significantly more balanced and commercially-focused business than it was 12 months ago, underpinned by the most advanced technology in the industry. With the right product, company structure and funding now in place, the Board is confident of maintaining a positive growth trajectory and looks to the future with optimism.

Further to Aziz Musa's departure as CEO in February 2017, the Company is actively engaged in the search for a replacement with strong commercial growth experience. I, supported by CFO Jonathan Lees and Head of R&D Stephen Streater, have assumed the responsibilities of the CEO on a short-term basis.

Introduction

Forbidden Technologies plc (AIM: FBT) is the AIM quoted owner and developer of Forscene, the market-leading cloud video platform.

The Company is continuously building on its powerful cloud video platform with multiple applications which can be used by a range of different users, including: rights holders; broadcasters; sports and news video specialists; post-production houses; other mass market digital video channels; corporates and consumers. 

The Company's platform applications help customers improve their time to market on time sensitive content, efficiently exploit the full value of their content, more effectively engage with their customers/fans, and gain the remote access, efficiency and scalability benefits of a cloud-based platform such as Forscene. Specific applications include:

·    Enabling sports broadcasters and rights holders to engage more effectively digitally with their viewers by allowing them to provide clips and highlights packages during the broadcast, faster than ever before.

·     Enabling news producers to efficiently distribute news digitally and localise content.

·    Enabling production houses and post production houses to remotely capture, log, edit and review their content, speed up the post production process and save money.

·     Enabling professional video producers to incorporate user generated content from smartphones.

·   Enabling sports franchises, or any brand with large numbers of consumers, to improve their fan/consumer engagement with a unique combination of tools.

Consolidated income statement and consolidated statement of financial position

In the year ended 31 December 2016, the Group recorded revenue of £774,825 (£708,717 in 2015), which represented an increase of 9% year on year. Revenue, for income statement purposes, is derived from invoiced sales of £1,007,074 (£707,502 in 2015), which represented an increase of 42% year on year. Deferred revenues grew year on year by 593% from £39,004 to £270,321. Operating costs during the year to 31 December 2016 were £2,441,441 compared to £2,686,059 in the corresponding period in 2015. Operating costs for income statement purposes are net of capitalised development costs which were £281,466 in comparison to £488,729 in the prior year. The loss before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation was £1,787,406 (2015: £2,085,750). The net loss for the year of £2,340,464 compares to a loss of £2,556,423 in 2015.

The Group is debt free and had cash and cash equivalents at 31 December 2016 of £3,711,033 in comparison to a balance as at 31 December 2015 of £1,675,695. This cash balance includes two successful fundraisings during the period to 31 December 2016 which generated total net cash, after fundraising costs of £4,007,101.

In the Chairman's Statement at the General Meeting held on 28 December 2016, we indicated that the Company would achieve total cost savings of approximately £500,000 by the end of 2016 in comparison to 2015. Following a restructuring which was implemented in May 2016, total cost savings primarily in the second half of 2016 were £472,975 comprising £244,618 of operating costs and £228,357 of capitalised costs. This is in line with the Company's annualised run rate target of £1 million in savings communicated to Shareholders earlier in the year.

2016 Sales growth momentum and positioning for long term growth

After achieving year on year invoiced sales growth in the first half of the year of 25%, we accomplished equivalent growth in the second half of the year of 59% resulting in full year invoiced sales growth of 42%.  Although off a relatively small base, this is showing the progress we have been aiming to achieve.

Revenues, based on our profit and loss statement, lag invoiced sales growth.  In the first half of the year, we had no year on year growth; however, the second half of the year showed 17% growth resulting in total revenues for the year of £774,825 (£708,717 in 2015).  This is in comparison to total invoiced sales of £1,007,074 compared to £707,502 in 2015.  This growth has come while also maintaining our gross margins at over 84%.

Our growth in 2016 has come from focusing our new business development activities into the sports market and the development of our international presence.  Our UK post production business grew by 7% and maintains high customer retention rates. Against our growth priorities, in sports we grew by 39% versus 2015, and now sports comprises 32% of our total revenue.  Internationally, we grew our revenue by 17% in 2016, with the US as our second most important market comprising 16% of our total revenue.  Linked to our growth focus we have also increased our average invoiced sales value from £558 in 2015 to £1,264 in 2016. Our news sector, which was not prioritised and is reliant on one reseller, did decline.

In May-June, we made a significant adjustment to our business that has contributed to this growth momentum.  We committed to grow our sales team, which we have achieved, taking the team from 2 people at the beginning of the year to its current level of 6 people. This was done whilst at the same time reducing our overall level of cash expenditures by an annualised equivalent of approximately £1 million starting in the second half of 2016. 

Starting in the second half of the year, we initiated the repositioning of our products into one cloud video platform, Forscene, with multiple applications (see www.forscene.net). The Company already has one of the most comprehensive SaaS platforms for rapidly generating clipping and highlights packages for sports and news, and for reality TV and factual programmes, highly efficient remote logging and non-linear editing solutions. To this end, the eva and Captevate applications will sit as additional applications within our Forscene platform. With a single platform focus, our sales efforts are now solely focused on business to business. In this context, the eva and Captevate applications will be interesting to brands with large consumer bases where adding video solutions and content will help drive engagement. Within our www.forscene.com site, HD Live is derived from eva and Forscene Cut and Share is derived from Captevate.  Our clients now see more clearly the full range of potential benefits we can provide them.  For example, in the sports market, our clients are currently primarily using us to improve their digital distribution of content. We help them get production quality clips and highlights packages rapidly into the digital market, often within minutes of the actual event.  The repositioning of our products into one cloud video platform has been an important step in improving our ability to commercialise our technology and further broaden Forscene's appeal in the market. This is vital in helping rights holders to support and grow their revenue streams.  Events where we were used in 2016 include the Paralympics, Wimbledon, and the UEFA Champions League.  Additional sports solutions include a range of applications that can be used to improve fan engagement for sports franchises. 

Our growth focus is supported by a smaller, but strong and highly experienced technology development team led by Stephen Streater, the Company's founder.  We continue to develop our platform by building new apps and capabilities against specific customer needs.  In addition, we continue to develop our core cloud infrastructure, with particular focus on continually progressing our patent protected codec, 'Blackbird'. This codec is uniquely developed to deal with the demanding requirements of professional editors, and continues the progression of evolving, in line with improving video quality, which has moved from 'Standard Definition' to 'High Definition' to 'UHD/4k' over the last few years.

Management Team and Organisation

By the end of 2016, we had grown our commercial team, created a more tightly focused technology and product development team led by Stephen Streater (CTO), and an efficient and stronger finance and human resources capability led by Jonathan Lees (CFO). 

Our commercial and service delivery team at the end of the year comprised 15 people or 52% of the organisation. This team includes sales, marketing, sales support, product management and service delivery. We also add to our commercial capabilities through the selective sign up of resellers.

Although, we have reduced the size of our technology and product development team, we continue to progress the development of our platform through a clear focus on developments matched against clearly identified customer requirements. 

We finished the year with a stronger and more balanced organisation than we started with at the beginning of 2016. 

In February 2017, the Company's Chief Executive Officer, Aziz Musa, resigned for personal reasons and we wish him well in the future. I, assisted by Stephen Streater and Jonathan Lees have taken on the responsibilities of the Chief Executive Officer on a temporary basis whilst we search for a new CEO and continue to drive the growth of the Company.

Cash Management and Fundraising

Cash management is a constant focus of the executive management team. Our use of cash has been focused on increasing the balance of spend towards sales and marketing to drive growth in sales and reduce cash burn. We are vigilant in ensuring additional investments are targeted where there is commercial benefit.

During the year, we successfully raised additional equity funding twice.  In June 2016, we completed a net fundraising of £1.2m at 7p per share.  In December, we completed an additional fundraising of net £2.8m at 10p per share.  Our cash position at the end of the year of £3.7m provides us with a strong balance sheet from which to grow the business.

Post Period Highlights

Post year end, there have been a number of highlights:

·      In January, we announced a three-year deal with deltatre for one of their clients. This shows deltatre's belief in the long-term strength of our Forscene platform and our ability to support them in growing their market by delivering superior digital sports solutions. Along with IMG who is also a key client, deltatre is a major service provider in the sports market where we already work with them across a number of sports and clients.

·      Also in January 2017, we announced a new video codec, Blackbird 9, where we have launched the patent protection process.  Blackbird 9 significantly reduces the datarate compared to earlier Blackbird codecs. With Forbidden's patented loss-free artificial intelligence ("AI") compression engine at its core, Blackbird 9 is expected to improve the experience of professional users of the Forscene platform as they move towards editing higher resolution videos, by allowing for the efficient compression and decompression of video for uploading, editing and publishing. With both faster playback and fewer internet accesses per video, Blackbird 9 also improves multicam performance, where multiple video streams are logged or edited concurrently.

Future outlook

For 2017, we start the year with deferred revenues of £270,321 vs. £39,004 at the beginning of 2016, as well as a larger pipeline of business.  In addition, we have a larger sales and marketing team, and more resellers and key partnerships compared to last year.

We will continue to sell the full and growing benefits of our Forscene platform to all existing customers and resellers, as well as prospective customers.  We will grow our reseller channel to market from our current base of resellers which include post production facilities houses and sector specialists such as in sports and news, and geographic specialists.

We believe our ambitions are also supported by the growing adoption of cloud video storage for professional content, particularly in the broadcast and sports markets. The cloud video storage market is a high growth market and cloud applications, such as ours, are a natural adjunct to storage.  Our strong position in this market will be supported by continued development of our platform on applications against specific client needs. In addition, our relationships with Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) indicate their belief in the need for video applications in the cloud. Forscene is already being used in both Microsoft Azure and AWS applications.

Finally, the Board and management team are confident that we have the platform, capabilities and funding in place, to continue to grow our business.  Our recent funding, gives us the capability to invest behind clear new growth opportunities, whilst continuing to move towards cash generation and profitability.

David Main

Chairman

Consolidated income statement and statement of comprehensive income for the year ended 31 December 2016

					2016	2015
					£	£
CONTINUING OPERATIONS
Revenue					774,825	708,717
Cost of Sales					(120,790)	(108,408)
GROSS PROFIT					654,035	600,309
Operating costs					(2,441,441)	(2,686,059)
EARNINGS BEFORE INTEREST, TAXATION, DEPRECIATION AND AMORTISATION					(1,787,406)	(2,085,750)
Depreciation					(50,053)	(156,162)

Loss on disposal of fixed assets                                                                                                                                                      -                         (1,309)

Amortisation                                                                                                                                                                          (456,298)                    (334,602)

Employee share option costs                                                                                                                                              (73,250)                       (84,783)

(579,601)                    (576,856)

OPERATING LOSS					(2,367,007)	(2,662,606)
Finance income					3,014	27,124

LOSS BEFORE INCOME TAX					(2,363,993)	(2,635,482)
Income tax					23,529	79,059
LOSS FOR THE YEAR					(2,340,464)	(2,556,423)
TOTAL COMPREHENSIVE INCOME FOR THE YEAR					(2,340,464)	(2,556,423)

Earnings per share expressed in pence per share

Basic - continuing and total operations                                                                                                                               (1.63p)                        (1.94p)

Fully diluted - continuing and total operations				(1.63p)		(1.94p)

Consolidated and Company statements of financial position as at 31 December 2016

		Group			Company
		2016	2015		2016	2015
		£	£		£	£
ASSETS
NON-CURRENT ASSETS
Other intangible assets		1,343,834	1,518,666		1,343,834	1,518,666
Property, plant and equipment		48,448	74,956		48,448	74,956
Investments		-	-		641	641
		1,392,282	1,593,622		1,392,923	1,594,263
CURRENT ASSETS
Trade and other receivables		418,774	233,845		417,272	233,211
Current tax assets		23,529	79,059		23,529	79,059
Cash and bank balances		3,711,033	1,675,695		3,710,927	1,674,637
		4,153,336	1,988,599		4,151,728	1,986,907
TOTAL ASSETS		5,545,618	3,582,221		5,544,651	3,581,170
EQUITY AND LIABILITES
CAPITAL AND RESERVES
Issued share capital		1,443,890	1,054,518		1,443,890	1,054,518
Share premium		16,935,301	13,317,572		16,935,301	13,317,572
Capital contribution reserve		125,000	125,000		125,000	125,000
Retained earnings		(13,454,916)	(11,187,702)		(13,455,073)	(11,187,737)
TOTAL EQUITY		5,049,275	3,309,388		5,049,118	3,309,353
CURRENT LIABILITIES
Trade and other payables		496,343	272,833		495,533	271,817
TOTAL LIABILITIES		496,343	272,833		495,533	271,817
TOTAL EQUITY AND LIABILITIES		5,545,618	3,582,221		5,544,651	3,581,170

Consolidated statement of changes in equity for the year ended 31 December 2016

		Issued share capital		Retained earnings		Share premium		Capital contribution reserve		Total equity
		£		£		£		£		£
Balance at 1 January 2015		1,054,518		(8,716,062)		13,317,572		125,000		5,781,028
Changes in equity
Share based payment		-		84,783		-		-		84,783
Total comprehensive income for the year		-		(2,556,423)		-		-		(2,556,423)
Balance at 31 December 2015		1,054,518		(11,187,702)		13,317,572		125,000		3,309,388
Changes in equity
Issue of share capital (net of expenses)		389,372		-		3,617,729		-		4,007,101
Share based payment		-		73,250		-		-		73,250
Total comprehensive income for the year		-		(2,340,464)		-		-		(2,340,464)
Balance at 31 December 2016		1,443,890		(13,454,916)		16,935,301		125,000		5,049,275

Consolidated and Company statements of cash flows for the year ended 31 December 2016

		Group			Company
		2016	2015		2016	2015
	Notes	£	£		£	£
Cash flows from operating activities
Cash used in operations	A	(1,748,825)	(2,212,498)		(1,747,873)	(2,158,108)
Tax received		79,059	33,650		79,059	33,650
Net cash from operating activities		(1,669,766)	(2,178,848)		(1,668,814)	(2,124,458)
Cash flows from investing activities
Payments for intangible fixed assets		(281,466)	(488,729)		(281,466)	(488,729)
Payments for property, plant and equipment		(23,545)	(44,639)		(23,545)	(44,639)
Proceeds from sale of property, plant and equipment		-	1,887		-	-
Maturity of fixed term deposits		-	2,000,000		-	2,000,000
Interest received		3,014	27,124		3,014	27,124
Net cash from investing activities		(301,997)	1,495,643		(301,997)	1,493,756
Cash flows from financing activities
Share issue (net of expenses)		4,007,101	-		4,007,101	-
Net cash from financing activities		4,007,101	-		4,007,101	-
Increase/(decrease) in cash and cash equivalents		2,035,338	(683,205)		2,036,290	(630,702)
-
Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of year	B	1,675,695	2,358,900		1,674,637	2,305,339
Cash and cash equivalents at end of year	B	3,711,033	1,675,695		3,710,927	1,674,637

Notes to the Consolidated and Company statements of cash flows for the year ended 31 December 2016

A.         RECONCILIATION OF LOSS BEFORE INCOME TAX TO CASH (USED IN)/GENERATED FROM OPERATIONS

		Group			Company
		2016	2015		2016	2015
		£	£		£	£
Loss before income tax		(2,363,993)	(2,635,482)		(2,364,115)	(2,635,517)
Depreciation		50,053	156,162		50,053	156,162
Loss on disposal of fixed assets		-	1,309		-	-
Amortisation charges		456,298	334,602		456,298	334,602
Employee share option costs		73,250	84,783		73,250	84,783
Finance income		(3,014)	(27,124)		(3,014)	(27,124)
Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation		(1,787,406)	(2,085,750)		(1,787,528)	(2,087,094)
Movements in working capital:
(Increase)/decrease in trade and other receivables		(184,929)	60,033		(184,061)	126,146
Decrease in inventories		-	41,963		-	17,564
Increase/(decrease) in trade and other payables		223,510	(228,744)		223,716	(214,724)
Cash (used in)/generated from operations		(1,748,825)	(2,212,498)		(1,747,873)	(2,158,108)

B.       CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS

The amounts disclosed in the Statement of Cash Flows in respect of cash and cash equivalents are in respect of these balance sheet amounts:

		Group			Company
Year ended 31 December 2016
		31/12/16	1/1/16		31/12/16	1/1/16
Cash and cash equivalents		3,711,033	1,675,695		3,710,927	1,674,637
Year ended 31 December 2015
		31/12/15	1/1/15		31/12/15	1/1/15
		£	£		£	£
Cash and cash equivalents		1,675,695	2,358,900		1,674,637	2,305,339

This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

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