Interim Results for the Six Months Ended 31 December 2015

IPPlus today announces its audited interim results for the six months ended 31 December 2015.

These statements are presented to show the continuing activities of the Group and the discontinued activities of the Ancora Solutions division which was disposed of on 31 December 2014. Comparative data is for the six month period to 31 December 2014 ("H1 2014").

Financial Highlights

Basic and diluted earnings per share (EPS)

Commercial Highlights

• Continuing businesses revenue increased by £681,476 (20%) compared to the first half of last year
  • Ansaback revenues increased by £813,639 (29%) against to the comparative period, due to a significant new client
  • CallScripter revenue fell by £132,163 (24%) against the comparative period
  • PCI-PAL revenues increased by 80% when compared to the prior period
  • Transaction volumes increased by 165% over prior year
  • PCI-PAL secured a Proof of Concept for a major UK utility business following the year end
• Long term clients and recurring revenues increased to £2.6m: 64% of total turnover (December 2014: £2.3m, 68%)
• Profit after tax of £216,425 (H1 2014: loss of £163,640), of which £130,385 was generated by continuing operations (H1 2014: loss of £116,917)
• Closing cash and cash equivalents at 31 December 2015: £845,541 (31 December 2014: £352,492)

Chris Fielding, Non-Executive Chairman, commented:

"Despite macroeconomic conditions remaining volatile, with the EU referendum set to cause turbulence and disruption, the Board is pleased with the turn around and is confident that the Group's long term strategy is appropriate. IPPlus has a solid quality client base within Ansaback and we are confident that PCI-PAL will provide exciting growth prospects in the 'Fintech' (Financial Technology) space."

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Chairman's statement

Financial Summary

It is my pleasure to report a significantly improved result with a good second half expected.

Overall the Group generated a profit before taxation for the six months to December 2015 of £116,993 (December 2014: loss of £116,917). This was achieved on an increased revenue of £4,055,700 (December 2014: £3,374,240), reflecting the improved trading in Ansaback, which won a substantial contract, and PCI-PAL.

As we have previously reported, in the prior year a large utility contract came to its end, but this has been succeeded in October 2015 with the win for Ansaback in the retail sector. The Board remains confident that the Group's diverse range of high quality service businesses with their differing drivers, our capacity for growth  and our  strong balance sheet, mean that we are well placed to continue growing profitably going forwards.

The Group's cash position at 31 December 2015 was £845,541 (December 2014: £352,492).

Business Summary

The Group has two principal businesses namely Ansaback, which includes PCI-PAL, and CallScripter.

Ansaback is a 24 hours a day, seven days a week bureau telephony service providing overflow and out of hours call handling, emergency cover, dedicated phone resources, as well as disaster recovery lines and facilities, and other ancillary telecommunication services.

PCI-PAL is a hosted, Level 1 compliant, credit card solution designed to minimise fraud by preventing credit card data being stored at a client's premises. PCI-PAL also handles the telephony services arm of Ansaback and provides a range of network level interactive call services including non-geographic, low call and Freephone telephone facilities. 

CallScripter is an enhanced customer interaction software suite specifically developed for contact centres, telesales and telemarketing operations. Our clients gain major benefits by introducing CallScripter's dynamic scripting environment into their organisation as the software facilitates the rapid set-up, handling and reporting of sophisticated inbound, outbound and e-mail campaigns.

Review of Operations

Ansaback

Revenue grew by 29% in the six months to 31 December 2015. This reversed much of the decrease from the previous year, which was due to a large utility client taking its business in house when their existing contract finished.

This year's substantial increase is principally due to an important new retail sector client, together with growth from other retail and utility businesses and an increase in outbound revenues.

Bureau minute traffic has advanced further with longer call durations, a consequence of more complex client and customer service demands.

High employment has challenged our employee churn rates and the call centre continues to focus on retaining its highly skilled staff.  The challenges of the living wage, and its knock-on effect to the clients, have been addressed and so far most of the clients appear to have accepted the call cost rises we have been passing on. The call centre has expanded by a further 66 seats whilst an additional 30 seats have been added at our business continuity facility in Martlesham, which is now able to offer 90 disaster recovery seats.

We have recently joined a European call centre group, as one of the founding members, the goal of which is to increase multi-lingual services which some of our clients are seeking. The partners in this alliance are all of similar scale and offer both bureau and fixed seat business.   

The Ansaback sales team remain focussed on offering the emerging omni-channel (multi contact tying together mail/Facebook/Twitter/live chat and social media platforms) for new and existing clients and also continue our efforts on the Insurance and FNOL (First Notification of Loss) sectors.

PCI-PAL

PCI-PAL incorporates what we previously reported as IP3 Telecom, the telecommunications division of Ansaback. The division has made excellent progress in the first half of the year with revenue and transaction volumes increasing by 80% and 165% respectively, when compared with the same period last year. PCI-PAL is a cloud based suite of solutions designed to minimise credit card fraud by preventing credit card data being stored at a client's premises.  The concern of organisations being subjected to data hacks and cyber piracy continues to push many businesses towards finding a secure credit card solution. PCI-PAL has full Payment Card Industry ("PCI") Level 1 Accreditation, being compliant with the very latest card scheme standards, and is a solution which helps to prevent credit card fraud.

The continued growth of the PCI-PAL channel network is supporting pipeline growth as well as further strengthening the brand as a market leader, with the support of key industry specific partners. Although new competitors are emerging, we have a degree of first mover advantage and an excellent brand which is easily understood. As a result, we are particularly excited by the prospects for PCI-PAL.

Our existing PCI-PAL client portfolio consists primarily of blue chip household names. They have chosen our solution after having evaluated the various competing solutions. They are, in many cases, happy to be reference sites and provide testimonials to our new prospective clients. The number of transactions and the values passing through our secure network are growing rapidly.

The new PCI-PAL clients signed in the last six months include an increasing number of multinational clients and institutions who are in the process of becoming PCI compliant. By ridding their premises of sensitive data they reduce the potential impact of a data hack and file loss which would result in fines and reputational damage. However new larger clients which have signed for the service are taking longer than anticipated to "go live".

CallScripter

CallScripter has had a challenging six months with delays in customer decision making processes resulting in a lower than expected turnover. However our effort remains to build on the partner channel as this offers the best avenue to market. We continue to follow our partner strategy to align with the market leaders, however with the rise in organisations looking for Cloud Contact Centre solutions we have recently added 3 new partners from this space who offer the chance to build monthly revenues from subscription based models in different markets to our traditional partners.

Our latest major upgrade to the CallScripter application, CallScripter Synergy, is now publically available and currently undergoing Proof of Concept in two large overseas organisations from the Finance and Outsourcing sectors. If successful we expect to see initial revenues from this new market in the second half.

We have also moved our own hosted offering to the Amazon Web Services ("AWS") platform. This offers increased scalability and geographic coverage, enabling us to offer a hosted solution in any location worldwide as demand arises. The AWS pay per use model also provides us with some cost savings over our existing supplier.

Outlook

Whilst the economy has improved somewhat, the macroeconomic conditions remain volatile, with the EU referendum set to cause turbulence and disruption. Staffing and pay will also remain an issue as businesses compete for the talent pool.  The Board has therefore resolved not to pay an interim dividend.

The Board is pleased with the turn around and is confident that the Group's long term strategy is appropriate. IPPlus has a solid quality client base within Ansaback and we are confident that PCI-PAL will provide exciting growth prospects in the 'Fintech' (Financial Technology) space.

Chris Fielding

Chairman

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME

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CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS (continued)

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF CHANGES IN EQUITY