Getech Group plc
("Getech" or the "Company" and together with its subsidiaries the "Group")
Interim report for the twelve months ending 31 July 2017
(incorporating the interim report for the six months ending 31 July 2017)
As announced on 20 September 2017, Getech's Board has decided to move the Group's year-end and reporting Accounting Reference Date to 31 December. Due to this change, our reporting calendar will be as follows:
· Unaudited interim results for the period ending 31 July 2017 will be published by 31 October 2017
· Audited final results for the 17 months ended 31 December 2017 will be published by 28 February 2018
· Thereafter unaudited interim results will be published within 3 months of 30 June and audited final results within 6 months of 31 December.
The following results are the unaudited interim results for the period ending 31 July 2017.
Chairman's Statement
Highlights
· Revenues of £7.7 million in the year to 31 July 2017 with an additional £0.8 million sales closed relating to future deliverables
· Group year-end and reporting Accounting Reference date moved to 31 December
· Strength in Products tempered by headwinds in geoscience services
· 32% reduction in Group cash costs (like-for-like) but 11% expansion in product investment
· Cash balance at 31 July 2017: £1.7 million (31 July 2016: £2.8 million); inclusive of £1.0 million temporary cash timing effect and £0.5 million of redundancy costs
· Final acquisition payments made for ERCL and Exprodat totalling £0.5 million (2016: £0.2 million)
· Underlying £1.9 million net operating cash inflow (2016: underlying £0.3 million net operating cash outflow)
· Encouraging start to trading in the period beginning 1 August 2017
In the 12 months to 31 July 2017 the Getech Group enhanced its cash profitability and strengthened the commercial positioning of its Products and Services. This has been achieved under the leadership of a new management team; through a combination of cost control, customer engagement and the repositioning of how we invest our operating cash flow. These steps have significantly strengthened the Group.
The financial expression of these steps is partially obscured by exceptional restructuring costs, a period-end cash timing issue and 2016 fair value adjustments. Cash balances are also net of the final payments of £0.5 million for the ERCL Limited and Exprodat Consulting Limited acquisitions. Looking through these items, Getech generated an underlying £1.9 million net operating cash inflow, which compares to a 2016 net operating cash outflow of £0.3 million (see table A).
More broadly, as well as growing our revenues in our core oil & gas market, we continue to progress new opportunities where we can apply our geoscience and geospatial skills to new challenges in new sectors. In the year to 31 July 2017, we worked for customers in the nuclear, water and transportation sectors. Although the revenue contribution of these activities is currently small, I am pleased to report that our delivery has won us follow-on work in each new sector.
Operational Review
· New Senior Management Team, drawn from across the enlarged Group
· Globe Phase Two completed - on time and on cost
· Significant expansion in pre-funding for 2018 work programme
As a Group we have used our financial and operational strength to build and broaden our business during the oil & gas sector downturn. In June 2016 we completed the acquisition of Exprodat, a global leader in geospatial software and services, and in August 2016 we appointed a new CEO, Dr Jonathan Copus.
On his arrival Jonathan initiated a Group-wide review to assess the Group's financial, operational and commercial positioning. The wide-ranging programme of organisational change that followed has repositioned our staff and their skills around more clearly defined Product and Service divisions. We have also refocused our products and services to more specifically address the technical challenges faced by our customers in their exploration, production and management of natural resources. This programme has been led by a new Senior Management Team, and delivered by teams from across the entire Getech Group.
Year-on-year, like-for-like Group costs have been lowered by 32% (see table B), whilst our programme of product investment expanded by 11%. In the same period sales rose by 9%, but this figure excludes an additional £0.8 million of pre-funding for our 2018 product development programme, which commenced on 1 August 2017.
Products
The year to 31 July 2017 presented a more buoyant market for our Products division, where our offering spans data, software, and multi-client reports. Across these products we view our success to reflect the collaborative approach that we have established with our customers and our continued commitment to training and product enhancement.
At the heart of our product offerings lie our market-leading inventory of Gravity & Magnetic data. Sales of these data were strong - it being an essential and cost-effective component of the integrated campaigns of our oil & gas customers, and a core operational tool for the mining industry. These data, coupled with our advanced processing techniques and interpretation expertise, are also used to underpin our Globe and Regional Reports products.
Globe is a large GIS-based data product that our customers use to strengthen their understanding of the Earth's geological evolution and to predict the location of its natural resources. It does this by providing paleogeographic, structural geology and paleoenvironmental data through geologic time; factors that combine to control the formation and location of oil & gas. Globe users are better positioned to understand petroleum systems and predict geologic risk and uncertainty. The team delivering this product is Getech's largest and draws on a diverse range of skills.
In August 2017 Globe entered its eighth year of development and continues to benefit from the support of a broad group of supermajors and large independent oil and gas companies. In December 2016 Globe's customer base was further strengthened when another prominent supermajor signed up to the product, and in July 2017 Globe Phase Two was completed on-time and on-cost. Customer feedback on Globe Phase Two's new content and delivery enhancements has been strong and through a new programme of training and practical support we are seeing our userbase expand as the product becomes more central to our customers' daily workflow. Work on Globe 2018 commenced in August 2017.
We build additional value in and around the Globe product through our multi-client Regional Reports. These provide more detailed analysis of areas of key exploration interest. The sector downturn has made the market for these reports more challenging, however we retain a rich inventory of studies and we are exploring new ways for our customers to access their value. For example, in 2017 we created Regional Reports Online, a cloud-based delivery system that uses interactive web-based GIS apps that allow our customers to more easily access the rich underlying content.
Alongside our data and reports, our software products provide petroleum-focused extensions to Esri's ArcGIS Desktop application. These enable oil & gas explorers to easily integrate data from sub-surface interpretation applications, perform complex play-based exploration workflows, plan well patterns and manage unconventionals reserves over time. Our three core extensions, Data Assistant, Exploration Analyst and Unconventionals Analyst, were enhanced to include a range of new customer-requested functionality and upgraded to include support for Esri's latest 10.5.1 release. The re-subscription rate across all the software products maintained 2016 levels at above 95%, and our install-base grew further - driven by new sales (14% overall customer increase) and by customers with Global licenses deploying the software more widely within their organisations.
Services
As the number of redundancies across the upstream industry has increased, and with exploration and production budgets remaining constrained, competition within the geoscience consulting space has intensified. As a result, the market conditions for these activities remained challenging. This was partially offset by our GIS service offering, which continued to benefit from a range of long-term oil & gas relationships and an ability to open doors to new opportunities.
Our ability to leverage our underlying products and deliver complex integrated geoscience and geospatial consultancy projects remains a key differentiator for Getech. As an example, we have a long history of assisting Governments and National Oil Companies with License Rounds, Data Management, Capacity Building and Advisory services. In 2017, Getech, through its wholly owned subsidiary ERCL, worked for the Governments of Lebanon, Mozambique, Namibia, Ras al Khaimah and Sierra Leone.
In Sierra Leone we have been working with the Petroleum Directorate since 2016, a project initially funded by the World Bank. In the year to 31 July 2017 this relationship broadened into a long-term partnership through which we will work together to promote Sierra Leone as a key area for exploration investment. This and similar programmes of Government Advisory work enable us to broker a rich portfolio of seismic and well data.
Closer to home, we won a mandate to define and deliver a multi-faceted spatial data strategy for the UK Oil and Gas Authority (the OGA), who then commissioned Getech's Gravity and Magnetics team to complete technical service work over the South-Western Approaches area of the UK Continental Shelf. In the period the OGA also purchased our proprietary MultiSat gravity product which is now being used to encourage investment in under explored areas of the region.
Our GIS Services Group has been utilised across a broad range of engagements. We worked on spatial data projects that included creating a web-based mapping platform to assist oil spill response, pipeline engineering, vessel tracking and ice monitoring in and around the Caspian Sea. The team was also engaged designing delivery improvements to Globe and our Regional Reports products and conducted a variety of public and private training courses in Europe, the US and Australia.
Away from oil & gas, our GIS skills continue to open doors to opportunities across a range of new sectors. We worked in partnership with Esri UK on contracts in the water and transportation industries, and we have matured and expanded our GIS software services footprint in the nuclear space. In each of these new sectors our investment of time and resource has been rewarded by winning follow-on work.
Financial Review
During the 12 months to 31 July 2017 and the year to 31 July 2016 there have been events and accounting adjustments that together obscure the underlying performance of the business. The table below sets out key figures from the financial statements and the equivalent figure adjusted for these events and accounting treatments.
(A) Key financial statement figures and adjustments |
2017 Actual (unaudited) £'000 |
2017 Adjusted (unaudited)
£'000 |
2016 Actual £'000 |
2016 Adjusted (unaudited)
£'000 |
Revenue |
7,670 |
7,670 |
7,031 |
7,031 |
Operating (loss)/profit (1) (2) |
(130) |
321 |
693 |
(152) |
Profit attributable to owners of the company (1) (2) |
154 |
605 |
1,089 |
270 |
|
|
|
|
|
Net cash inflow/(outflow) from operations (1) (3) |
513 |
1,949 |
(285) |
(259) |
Development costs capitalised |
(916) |
(916) |
(824) |
(824) |
Acquisition costs, net of cash received |
(500) |
(500) |
(240) |
(240) |
|
|
|
|
|
Cash and cash equivalents (1) (3) |
1,697 |
3,133 |
2,788 |
2,814 |
(1) Restructuring costs
During the year to 31 July 2017, the Group launched a restructuring programme that resulted in one-off costs of £451,000 (2016: £26,000). The adjusted income statement and cash flow figures above remove these costs to show the underlying business performance.
(2) Fair value adjustment
During the year to 31 July 2016, the fair value of the provision for earn-out payments relating to the acquisition of ERCL was written down by £845,000 resulting in a one-off credit to administrative costs for the same amount. The adjusted income statement figures above reverse the change to the fair value of the provision, which was made in 2016 to reflect market conditions. This is an accounting adjustment and therefore does not affect reported cash flow figures.
(3) Exceptional payment delays
At 31 July 2017 unforeseen, exceptional payment delays, which our customers informed us of late in July 2017, resulted in £985,000 of cash not being collected until after the reporting period.
This has a significant effect on the reported cash flow figures for the period. The figures above are adjusted to reflect the unexpected delay in payments, the position being rectified shortly after the period end. This is a cash flow and working capital adjustment and therefore does not affect the reported income statement figures.
Revenues and cost management
Getech reports revenues of £7,670,000 for the 12 months to 31 July 2017, up 9% compared to 2016. In addition to the revenue reported, a further £791,000 of sales were closed before 31 July 2017 that relate to deliverables in future periods.
In the year to 31 July 2017 Exprodat made its first full 12-month contribution to Group revenues and costs. Exprodat's revenue contribution was in part offset by a challenging Geoscience Services market and a slowdown in sales of our Regional Reports product. In response, by way of a broader repositioning of our product and services activities, we have reduced the Group's underlying cost base by 32% (like-for-like). The table below provides a reconciliation of costs.
Cost reductions have been achieved through the reduced use of contractors and by lowering the staff head-count by 18%. Service activities, and management/administrative overhead roles bore the brunt of job losses during the six-month period to 31 January 2017, the cash benefit of which was not fully realised until the second six-month period.
(B) Like-for-like cost base reconciliation |
Percent variance from prior 12 months |
12 months
ended
31 July 2017
Unaudited £'000 |
Year ended
31 July 2016
Audited
£'000 |
Cost of sales |
|
4,220 |
3,503 |
Administrative costs |
|
3,580 |
2,835 |
Development costs capitalised |
|
916 |
824 |
Depreciation and amortisation charges |
|
(799) |
(671) |
(Decrease)/increase in inventories |
|
(1) |
775 |
Exchange adjustments |
|
27 |
77 |
Fair value adjustments |
|
- |
845 |
Cost base |
(3.0) % |
7,943 |
8,188 |
Exprodat cost base for 2016 (an additional 10.5mths in full year figures) |
|
- |
2,873 |
Like-for-like cost base |
(28.2) % |
7,943 |
11,061 |
Redundancy costs |
|
(451) |
(26) |
Like-for-like cost base, excluding one-off redundancy costs |
(32.1) % |
7,492 |
11,035 |
Cost base is measured as: cost of sales, administrative costs and development costs capitalised, less depreciation and amortisation, and adjusted for movement in work in progress, foreign exchange (as this predominantly relates to income for the group) and fair value adjustments. To allow like-for-like analysis, the cost base of Exprodat, that was not consolidated into the group financial statements before its acquisition on 14 June 2016, has been added to the group cost base. Figures below the 'cost base' line are unaudited.
Profitability
Getech reports an operating loss of £130,000 (2016: £693,000 operating profit). This includes the cost of restructuring the business and a one-off accounting adjustment in 2016. Adding back restructuring costs and reversing the accounting adjustment in 2016, Getech delivered an operating profit of £321,000 (2016: £152,000 operating loss).
In making the same adjustments to Getech's post-tax profit of £154,000 (2016: £1,089,000), the Group delivered an adjusted profit of £605,000 (2016: £270,000 profit).
Operating cash flow
Getech reports net operating cash inflows of £513,000 (2016: £285,000 cash outflow). This is inclusive of cash tax receipts of £521,000 (2016: net cash tax payments of £326,000). A review of our fiscal efficiency was completed in the period and this resulted in refunds from tax overpaid in the US and an improved tax credit position against our R&D expenditure. Most of these cash benefits were received during the first 6 months of the reporting period.
Operating cash flows for the reported period were affected by unforeseen, exceptional payment delays, which our customers informed us of late in July 2017, totalling £985,000. The payment delays have since been resolved and monies received.
When adjusted for the cash cost of restructuring and payment delays, the resulting operating cash inflow of £1,949,000 compares to an outflow of £258,000 twelve months previously.
Investment and capital expenditure
Getech continues to invest in its Globe platform, with expenditure of £916,000 during the reported period (2016: £824,000). The second phase of Globe investment was completed in July, on time and on cost, and delivered to our sponsors. Globe's 2018 work programme is now well underway.
During the period under review, £500,000 (2016: £240,000 net) cash payments were made in relation to the acquisition of ERCL and Exprodat. As at 31 July 2017 there are no further acquisition payments outstanding.
Liquidity
At the end of the period under review, Getech held £1,697,000 in cash and cash equivalents, and a gross debt of £755,000 (2016: £2,788,000 in cash and cash equivalents, and gross debt of £900,000). This represents a net cash outflow of £1,095,000 (2016: net cash outflow of £2,063,000).
The reduction in cash was temporary, reflecting the timing impact of unforeseen and exceptional payment delays described above. These late payments have now been received.
Adjusting net operating cash flows for £985,000 of delayed customer payments and £451,000 of restructuring costs, Getech's operations delivered an underlying net operating cash inflow of £1,949,000 (2016: £259,000 cash outflow), which would have translated to a period-end cash balance of £3,133,000 (2016: £2,814,000).
Dividends
Given the ongoing market conditions, the Directors do not consider it prudent to pay a dividend at this time.
Change to year-end reporting date
Getech's 31 July year-end places the Group's reporting cycle out of phase with our customers' budget cycle. This also means that we are looking to close year-end sales at the peak of the holiday season. The Board has therefore decided to move the Getech Group's year-end and reporting Accounting Reference Date to 31 December.
As a result of this change, the Company's reporting calendar will be as follows:
· Audited final results for the 17 months ended 31 December 2017 will be published by 28 February 2018
· Thereafter unaudited interim results will be published within 3 months of 30 June and audited final results within 6 months of 31 December.
Outlook
Underpinning future activities is a focus on how we add value to our customers; our goal being to deliver products and services that are technically innovative, easy to use, and which deliver practical value in their day-to day work.
From this starting point, we are better positioned to capture opportunities as green shoots emerge around oil and gas exploration spending, and we take cautious encouragement from recent trading. Following the period under review, we have seen a continuation of 2017's buoyant market for data, and we have a strong pipeline of pre-funded work. At the core of this are subscriptions to Globe 2018.
Our specification for the Globe 2018 release comprises the most diverse and innovative inventory of new content and features undertaken to date. It has been shaped through dialogue with our customers and we will use our GIS and software expertise to deliver improved usability and a broad programme of training. Work on Globe 2018 commenced in August 2017 and in parallel we launched Globe Regions - a new regionally-focused product positioned to open Globe's data and analysis to a wider customer audience.
Linking these themes to our Services division, in October 2017, the Government of Sierra Leone launched its fourth offshore petroleum licensing round. We will support this by using our products and service expertise to fast-track insight into the prospectivity of the region. This will be done through a series of technical studies married with an ongoing programme of technical support, technology transfer and counterpart training to the Petroleum Directorate. In return, we access the ability to exclusively broker a rich portfolio of high-value seismic and well data.
Elsewhere, we have signed an agreement with the Mozambique Water Ministry to deliver geochemical data on Esri's ArcGIS Platform to help locate new drinking water wells. A pilot study has been successfully commercialised and we are examining ways to expand the footprint of our work.
Conclusion
We continue to navigate what has been a fundamental rebasing of upstream exploration activity. We have repositioned or stopped activities that are 'nice to haves' for our customers, and focused our spending on an innovative programme of core products and related services. We see significant potential to broaden our activities and believe that key to unlocking this is the practical combination of our word-class geoscience and geospatial skills.
Our goal is to build our activities within and beyond our core upstream oil and gas market to become a leading solutions provider to the wider natural resources industry; this being a customer-base that invests billions of dollars each year making decisions that are 'geographic' in nature and which require specialised analytical skills and tools, to solve problems that involve highly complex spatial data. Harnessing these opportunities creates transformational potential for the Group.
As we move through this exciting period of corporate change, I would like to thank Getech's staff and my fellow Directors for their professionalism, hard work and dedication.
Dr Stuart M. Paton
Non-executive Chairman
For further information, please contact:
Getech Group plc Jonathan Copus, Chief Executive |
|
Tel: 0113 322 2200 |
WH Ireland Limited Katy Mitchell/James Sinclair-Ford |
|
Tel: 0161 832 2174 |