D4T4 business levels normalising, shareholders told

Investors in D4T4 Solutions were reminded of the company’s recent positive results on Thursday, including its 13.7% increase in organic top-line growth and the 22% increase in underlying profitability in its most recent financial report, as they gathered for the annual general meeting.

The AIM-traded firm said that outcome was a “very satisfactory and solid” performance, reflecting its ongoing focus on its higher-margin real-time customer data platform software, and its hybrid cloud data platform services business which it claimed had set the company in “good stead” to deliver year-on-year growth for the year ending March 2019.

Non-executive chairman Peter Simmonds said the board was already seeing encouraging returns from its business investment programme, including improvements to its CRM, accounting, management support and reporting systems.

“We have also invested in our partner-based sales strategy and, during the year, we will continue to scale up these relationships which will deliver further rewards both this year and in the future,” he explained.

“Our pipeline of sales opportunities in the UK and internationally is growing and we are very excited by the many opportunities that are presenting themselves.

“This was underpinned last week when we were delighted to update shareholders with news that in this first half, we had successfully won several new, and extensions to existing, data management and data collection contracts in our key vertical sectors - financial services and consumer organisations.”

Simmonds said those multi-year projects had been on the back of demand for both D4T4’s Celebrus software product set and its hybrid cloud data platform services, which had apparently seen “good traction”, particularly in the North American and EMEA markets.

He added that it also put the firm on track to return to more normalised levels of business weighting for the first half of the current financial year, against the comparable period last year.

“In addition, the company announced in its final results statement released on 26 June that the debtor balance owing was £19.5m as at 31 March, due to the business weighting occurring late in the second half.

“The company confirms that it has received payment of the £19.5m, and therefore now has a strengthened cash balance, providing the company significant flexibility to execute on corporate strategy."

Simmonds explained that the board believed that D4T4 had a “clear strategy” in place that would allow it to develop and deliver on the opportunities ahead, and that those would deliver sustainable growth and enable it to achieve its “ambitious” plans over the coming months and years.

“In summary, the group remains committed to a progressive dividend policy based on the overall performance whilst also balancing its investments for future growth.

“Our balance sheet is in good shape, with no debt and the company remains strongly cash generative.

“Combine this with the people, skill set and the flexibility to keep moving forward; the board remains confident of delivering on its expectations for the year ahead.”