IMImobile’s (IMO) gross profits for the six months to September 2019 rose by 21 per cent to £35.2m – giving a five-year compound annual growth rate of 21 per cent. This reflected improvements across all geographies, and a strong top-line performance – buoyed by an 18 per cent uptick in organic revenues.
True, the cloud communications software group increased considerably from £7.5m to £21.8m. But this reflected the $53.2m (£41m) acquisition of US cloud-based mobile customer engagement platform 3Cinteractive, announced in July. Along with the drawdown of new debt facilities, the deal was funded via a $20m placing.
The group maintains that 3Cinteractive has strengthened IMImobile’s presence in North America, and enabled it to become the world leader in ‘rich communications services' (‘RCS’) business messaging – a market that, by one estimate, could reach £16.2bn in size in 2023. Chief executive Jay Patel notes that IMImobile’s team in North America now comprises around 150 people – “a sufficient size of workforce in that market to make a success of it”. The group doesn’t see the need to buy in this market any more, although it will continue to look at acquisitions. To that point, post-period-end, the group bought Rostrvm – a UK-based-contact-centre software provider – for up to £3.5m.
House broker Investec expects EPS of 3.9p for FY2020, up from 2.6p in FY2019.
IMIMOBILE (IMO) | ||||
ORD PRICE: | 314p | MARKET VALUE: | £233m | |
TOUCH: | 310-317p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 340p | LOW: 203p |
DIVIDEND YIELD: | nil | PE RATIO: | na | |
NET ASSET VALUE: | 106p* | NET DEBT**: | 27% |
Half-year to 30 Sep | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
2018 | 67.2 | 1.16 | -0.20 | nil |
2019 | 83.0 | 1.30 | 1.00 | nil |
% change | +24 | +12 | - | - |
Ex-div: | na | |||
Payment: | na | |||
*Includes intangible assets of £123m, or 166p a share |