First Derivatives is engaged in the provision of a range of support services to the investment bank market, the derivatives technology industry and the provision of its own range of e-business applications. The Company operates two divisions: consultancy division, which provides services to capital markets, and software division, which develops and has an interest in intellectual property and provides related services.
First Derivatives is listed on the AIM market delivering year on year growth since floating in March 2002. First Derivatives has also been listed on ESM since June 2007

http://www.firstderivatives.com/index.html

First Derivatives PLC (FDP:LSE) set a new 52-week high during today's trading session when it reached 4,130.00. Over this period, the share price is up 94.58%.

Contract Win in Gaming
RNS
RNS Number : 3219F
First Derivatives PLC
20 February 2018

20 February 2018

First Derivatives plc
("FD" or the "Group")

Contract Win in Gaming

FD (AIM:FDP.L, ESM:FDP.I) announces that it has signed a contract with a FTSE 100 gaming company for the use of Kx technology to provide data analytics services. The contract win follows a successful proof of concept in which Kx provided operational intelligence that demonstrated a compelling return on investment versus traditional database solutions and open source alternatives. The customer is one of the world's leading sports betting and gaming operators with over four million customers globally and processes billions of transactions per day.

According to industry analysts Global Markets Insights, the retail analytics markets will surpass $13 billion by 2024. In attacking these markets, Kx will target potential customers including gaming, retail and airline and e-Commerce giants to address opportunities around customer yield, customer churn and pricing analysis.

Brian Conlon, Chief Executive Officer of Kx, commented: "This contract win is a powerful endorsement of our technology and we are very excited to work in partnership with this leading gaming company to help them to develop real-time insights across their activities. This win further demonstrates the flexibility of our horizontal technology which is being used across many industries in a variety of areas such as real-time analytics, Industrial IoT, cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence."

Trading update and Notice of Results
RNS
RNS Number : 9955L
First Derivatives PLC
25 April 2018

25 April 2018

First Derivatives plc
("FD" or the "Group")

Trading update and Notice of Results

FD (AIM:FDP.L, ESM:FDP.I) announces that it has continued to trade strongly in the second half of the financial year ended 28 February 2018. As a result, the Board now expects to report a financial performance slightly ahead of the current consensus forecasts of £180.2m of revenue and £32.9m of adjusted EBITDA.

The Group has also completed its analysis of the impact of the US Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which has resulted in a reduction in the US Federal corporate income tax rate from 35 per cent to 21 per cent. The US tax reform is expected to benefit the Group through an ongoing reduction in the Group's effective tax rate of 4-6%, in our preliminary view.

Full year results will be reported on 22 May. A briefing for analysts will be held at 9.30am on the day at the offices of FTI Consulting, 200 Aldersgate, London EC1A 4HD.

Kx provides rapid access to unstructured data
RNS
RNS Number : 3513O
First Derivatives PLC
17 May 2018

17 May 2018

First Derivatives plc
("FD" or the "Group")

Kx provides rapid access to unstructured data

FD (AIM:FDP.L, ESM:FDP.I) announces that its Kx technology, a world leader in time-series analytics for streaming, real-time and historical data, now supports rapid access to unstructured data with the release today of kdb+ 3.6, the latest version of its database and analytics technology.

The rapid analysis of unstructured data is essential in many industries. With kdb+ 3.6, Kx has enhanced the developer's ability to manipulate vast amounts of unstructured data. In particular, the new 'anymap' capability allows developers to query unstructured data held in kdb+ much more rapidly. This makes it easier to combine structured and unstructured data within a kdb+ database and analyze them both with the record-breaking speed that kdb+ is known for.

Kdb+ 3.6 also has a number of new features that make it even faster including: (i) JSON support as a primitive feature in the language, which results in a speedup of at least 10x; (ii) adding a new compression algorithm to the existing list and (iii) improvements to speed of GUID lookups. To improve the efficiency and flexibility of distributed queries, kdb+ 3.6 has also added deferred response to synchronized messages.

The latest version enhances Kx's recently-launched on-demand offering, a subscription-based version of kdb+ with a flexible pricing model that expands the availability and appeal of kdb+ for a much wider universe of use-cases. Kdb+ on-demand makes massively-parallel application architectures more accessible to developers, putting more compute power at their fingertips. Kdb+ 3.6 builds on that by expanding the tool kit available for those programmers who are building ever larger systems.

Simon Garland, Chief Customer Officer of Kx, commented: "Anymap makes it very easy for developers to work with both structured and unstructured data. Version 3.6, combined with our on-demand offering, makes it easier than ever for developers to deploy many more cores for short periods of intensive computation and only pay for what they use. Together they give technologists access to new application design and architecture possibilities. These capabilities continue Kx's tradition of providing simple, elegant solutions to large and complex data problems."

Preliminary results for the year ended 28 Feb 2018
RNS
RNS Number : 8036O
First Derivatives PLC
22 May 2018

22 May 2018
First Derivatives plc
("FD", the "Company" or the "Group")
Preliminary results for the year ended 28 February 2018
FD (AIM:FDP.L, ESM:FDP.I) today announces its results for the year ended 28 February 2018.
Financial Highlights
Revenue £186.0m (2017: £151.7m)
+23%
Adjusted EBITDA* £34.1m (2017: £28.8m)
+19%
Profit before tax £12.1m (2017: £12.5m)
-3%
Adjusted** profit after tax £19.5m (2017: £16.1m)
+21%
Adjusted** fully diluted EPS 72.2p (2017: 61.3p)
+18%
Full year dividend 24.0p per share (2017: 20.0p)
+20%
Net debt £16.2m (2017: £13.5m)

*Adjusted for share-based payments and acquisition costs
**Adjusted for amortisation of acquired intangibles, share-based payments, acquisition costs, foreign currency translation effect, share of loss of associate and exceptional taxation

Business Highlights
- Strong growth in software revenue, up 27% as a result of new contract wins and continued penetration of the existing customer base
- Strategic progression in our managed services and consulting activities resulting in revenue growth of 17%
- The implementation and ongoing support of a third-party system for a New York-based bank, representing one of the largest contracts in our history
- FinTech revenue up 22% to £142.9m (2017: £117.4m), driven by growth in recurring software revenue and an expansion of services provided to clients
- MarTech revenue up 24% to £38.2m (2017: £30.7m), driven by growth in subscriptions for our Marketing Cloud platform, powered by our Kx technology
- High-profile client wins including a Fortune 500 manufacturing company, a FTSE 100 gaming company and Aston Martin-Red Bull Racing, leading to inbound interest across a range of markets
- Continued investment across the Group, including machine learning and AI initiatives, to further penetrate our addressable market in software
- Boosted capabilities in telco, a key target market, through the acquisition of Telconomics
- Positive start to the current financial year, with a healthy pipeline of new business opportunities.

Seamus Keating, Chairman of FD, commented: "This has been another year where we have combined organic growth with selective investment in the business to realise the enormous market opportunity available to First Derivatives. Prompted by strong demand from our clients, we have continued to penetrate our markets enabling us to deliver our 21st consecutive year of double-digit revenue growth.

Our ability to capitalise on the investments we have made and the scale of our addressable software market provides us the potential for continued strong growth in future years. While we will continue to invest to stay at the forefront of our field, much has already been done to support our ambitious plans and our current structure is sufficient to achieve significant growth. Recognising that success always requires focus and effort, we nevertheless look to the future with confidence."

08:00 27/06/2018
Broker Forecast - Liberum Capital issues a broker note on First Derivatives PLC
Liberum Capital today initiates coverage of First Derivatives PLC (LON:FDP) with a buy investment rating and price target of 5300p. Story provided by StockMarketWire.com Broker Forecasts data provided by www.sharesmagazine.co.uk

FD to buy out minority Kx Systems shareholders
RNS
RNS Number : 1637T
First Derivatives PLC
02 July 2018

2 July 2018

First Derivatives plc
("FD" or the "Group")

FD to buy out minority Kx Systems shareholders

FD (AIM:FDP.L, ESM:FDP.I) announces that it has reached agreement with the minority shareholders of Kx Systems, Inc. ("Kx Systems"), a subsidiary of the Group, regarding the acquisition by FD of their entire remaining shareholding (the 'Transaction'). Upon completion of the Transaction, which is expected to take place on or before 29 June 2019, FD will own 100% of the issued share capital of Kx Systems.

Terms of the Transaction

FD has agreed to acquire the remaining 600,022 Kx Systems shares that it doesn't already own from the minority shareholders, namely Arthur Whitney and Janet Lustgarten, who are co-founders and current directors of Kx Systems, and their associated persons. The aggregate consideration is $53.8m in cash, to be financed from FD's available facilities. The terms of the transaction are in line with those agreed between FD and the minority shareholders in October 2014, and include a payment of $12.0m in lieu of anticipated dividends to the minority shareholders for the period up to 31 October 2021.

Brian Conlon, Chief Executive Officer of FD, commented: "Since we acquired a controlling interest in Kx Systems in October 2014 we have invested heavily across our business to target multiple new industries. The agreement to acquire 100% of Kx Systems provides certainty for the Group and its shareholders as we seek to realise the considerable potential we see for further growth."

First Derivatives wins European energy market contract
StockMarketWire.com
First Derivatives said Monday it had secured, together with its partner CGI, a contract to deliver a next-generation electricity information exchange for Fingrid, the transmission system operator for Finland.

Under the deal, First Derivatives' Kx technology would provide key functionality for the new system, known as Datahub, and would be integrated with CGI's Central Markets System (CMS) to deliver a centralised information exchange for retail markets.

Datahub would simplify, speed up and enhance the efficiency of the data exchange required by the retail electricity market, First Derivatives said.

At 10:19am: (LON:FDP) First Derivatives PLC share price was +45p at 4245p


Story provided by StockMarketWire.com

16 Jul
Shore Capital
4,200.00
Buy
16 Jul
Liberum Capital
5,300.00
Buy

Interim results

Business Highlights
· Strong growth in software revenue, up 21%, with license revenue up 39% driven by increased demand for Kx technology across our client base
· Continued strong demand within our managed services and consulting activities resulting in revenue growth of 19%
· Accelerated investment across the business in R&D, sales and marketing and software delivery in response to growth in the Kx sales pipeline across multiple industries
· FinTech revenue up 24% to £82.7m (H1 2018: £66.8m), driven by growth in software revenue and an expansion of services provided to clients
· MarTech revenue up 8% to £19.8m (H1 2018: £18.3m), driven by 42% growth in subscriptions for our Marketing Cloud platform, powered by Kx
· Line of business gross profit reported for the first time, with the highlights being an increase in software license gross margin to 84% (H1 2018: 76%) and a 31% increase in total software gross profit to £34.7m (H1 2018: £26.6m)
· High-profile new client wins including Fingrid, the Canadian Securities Administrators and, post the period end, BISTel and Survalent
· Increased our addressable market following the launch of kdb+ 3.6, which supports rapid analysis of unstructured data, and integration with Python, the most widely used AI programming language
· Agreement to acquire the minority shareholdings in Kx Systems, taking 100% ownership by end June 2019