WANdisco shares dive as bookings fall

WANdisco’s shares plummeted on Monday as the Yorkshire-based data services specialist reported a drop in first half bookings but stuck to full-year expectations.

The firm’s total bookings dropped 12.2% to $9m over the six months ended 30 June, with bookings for WANdisco Fusion and Source Code Management falling 11% to $6.2m and 13% to $2.8m respectively.

Despite this, the company justified stuck to its expectations due to a “robust and strengthening sales pipeline”.

The relationship with IBM was expanded to cover relational database technology and with terms significantly improved after winning new customers in banking, insurance and the US government during the period.

"We are delighted to deepen and broaden our relationship with IBM. We have increased the royalty payable to WANdisco and agreed to joint development that significantly expands our opportunities to leverage the IBM Channel," said David Richards, chief executive and interim chairman of WANdisco.

He said the first half of the year saw the group begin the "transition toward predictable, annual recurring cloud revenue and away from large and difficult to forecast on-premise transactions. This is an expected and extremely positive evolution for our business".

The AIM traded company reported a cash balance of $18m.

WANdisco’s shares, which have bounced back more than 400% over the past two years, were down 17.28% at 790.00p at 1547 BST.