ULS Technology expands market share despite property market challenges

ULS Technology reported on Monday that its interim profits grew after the company increased its market share in the re-mortgaging sector despite lower year-on-year housing market transactions.

For the six-month period ended 30 September, the conveyancing services outfit’s profit before tax jumped 266.8% to £2.3m compared to the same period last year, while revenue increased by 3.4% to £15.8m.

Underlying profit before tax, a non-IFRS profit measure, grew by 5.5% to £2.9m.

Cash and cash equivalents at 30 September stood at £1.8m, down from £2.9m at the same point last year, while the AIM traded company increased its interim dividend by 4% to 1.20p per share.

Steve Goodall, chief executive of ULS Technology, said: "We are pleased with our performance in the first half of the year especially given the wider economic environment. We once again outperformed the market in both transactional and re-mortgage volumes."

The period also saw the expansion of ULS’s sales team and the agreement of new conveyancing services with Hunters Estate Agents and Which? Mortgage Advisers.

"We have a number of new products in development and have many active conversations with various parties throughout the industry, where there is widespread interest in how to improve the customer journey. We are particularly excited about DigitalMove, which will be launched in January 2019 and will be a major step forward in the way that many consumers interact with their conveyancer," said Goodall.

DigitalMove is an online platform for communication between customers and conveyancers, intended to provide a user-friendly, digital environment which is safe and secure with the potential to take weeks off the house-moving process.

ULS Technology’s shares were up 0.52% at 77.40p at 1124 GMT.