27 May 2016
Watchstone Group plc
("Watchstone" or the "Company" or the "Group")
Results for the year ended 31 December 2015
Watchstone (AIM:WTG.L) today announces its results for the year ended 31 December 2015, a period of radical change for the Group.
Financial summary:
· Underlying* business revenues steady at £58.3m (2014: £56.5m)
· Underlying EBITDA loss of £16.1m (2014: loss of £16.8m)
· Disposal of the Professional Services Division generated a profit of £494.3m
· Impairment of goodwill and other intangible and non-cash assets - total charge of £113.5m (2014: £129.1m). Further details of the impairments can be found in notes 6 and 7 to the financial information in this announcement
· Total profit after tax £274.9m (2014: loss of £374.5m)
· Group net assets (excluding contingent liabilities) of £137.1m representing approximately 297 pence per share following capital return of £411.9m
· Group cash at 31 December 2015 of £103.2m including £97.6m in the Company. Group cash of £93.1m (unaudited) as at 20 May 2016 including cash in the Company of £86.9m (unaudited) with a further £50.0m (unaudited) in escrow.
* Underlying includes ptHealth, Hubio, Ingenie, BAS, Maine Finance and Central
Operational highlights:
· Disposal of the Professional Services Division for £645m plus deferred contingent consideration completed in May 2015
· Court approved capital return of 90 pence per ordinary share completed in December 2015
· New Group CEO and Board in place which has brought stability and started to rebuild investor confidence
· Substantial work completed and on-going to simplify the Group, reduce the Group's losses and build the platform to deliver the best possible shareholder value from all the Group's operational and other assets
· Clear strategy and plan for all Group businesses - energetically pursuing opportunities and robustly dealing with challenges
Current trading (unaudited):
· Overall trading is in line with expectations with some good momentum in ptHealth, ingenie and BAS
· ptHealth has had a solid start to the year
o Unaudited revenue of £6.6m in Q1 2016 (an increase of 4.4% vs. Q1 2015 (excluding exchange rate fluctuations) from a reduced number of clinics)
o Average revenue per clinic up 12% in Q1 2016 compared to the same period in 2015
o Assessment and treatment numbers have increased by 11% and 7% respectively during the same period
o Launch of InnoCare as a spin out of ptHealth
· ingenie performing strongly in Q1 2016
o Gross Written Premium up 23% to £20.7m in Q1 2016 (Q1 2015: £16.8m)
o Policies written up 19% to 10,706 in Q1 2016 (Q1 2015: 8,985)
o Approximately 39,700 policies in force at 31 March 2016 (31 March 2015: 34,515)
· Hubio stable but historic growth expectations proven to be unrealistic- business being reshaped in line with market opportunities
o Unaudited Q1 2016 revenue of £4.3m (Q1 2015: £4.1m)
o Active devices as at 30 April 2016 was 38,631, 77% more than at 30 April 2015 this was largely recovering from technical issues with a large customer in the US
· BAS is now cash generative whilst work continues to improve Maine Finance and quotesupermarket.com
o Unaudited BAS revenues for Q1 2016 of £0.8m, an increase of 21% on the same period in 2015 and the business is now cash generative
o Unaudited Q1 2016 total revenue for Maine Finance and quotesupermarket.com was £0.4m (Q1 2015: £0.5m)
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