TIDMCRTA
RNS Number : 4330Q
Cirata PLC
18 October 2023
18 October 2023
Cirata plc
("Cirata" or the "Company")
Trading Update and Outlook
Trading in line with management expectations
Outlook reaffirmed for H2 bookings performance.
Cirata plc (LSE: CRTA), announces a trading update for the
quarter period ended September 30, 2023.
Summary
-- Trading in line with management expectations
-- Bookings for the period of $1.7m, representing the first
quarter of normalised trading following the disruption in H1
-- Outlook reaffirmed for H2 bookings ($4.3M - $6.0M) and cash
balance for the year end ($16.0m - $16.5m)
-- Progress on Turnaround Plan workstreams
-- Further updates to operational KPI's
Trading update
Bookings [1] in Q3 2023 were $1.7m (Q3 2022: $1.9m), with the
business mix driven by Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)
software, comprising 67% of bookings [2] and Data Migration (DM)
software comprising 33% of bookings. There were three new contracts
in the quarter, including two previously announced (DM) contracts
with General Motors, and FordDirect.
A table of key performance indicators can be found in the
Business Review section.
As previously reported, the disruption to the H1 2023 trading
activity was significant, however, the transition of the Company
towards growth and the execution of the Turnaround Plan led by the
new Board and Executive Leadership Team is showing early progress.
In Q3 we continued to focus on our go to market execution and we
exit the quarter with new leadership in marketing.
The Company's shares were suspended for most of July and emerged
from the summer quarter, resuming normal operations with customers
and partners. The level of engagement with customers and partners
during the Q3 trading period is in line with management
expectations.
Outlook
The outlook for H2 bookings' performance remains unchanged.
-- H2 2023 bookings are expected to be in the range of $4.3m to $6.0m.
-- Relative to prior periods this would represent:
o Sequential progression on H1 2023, with 54% bookings growth at
the low end and 114% at the high end
o 5% bookings growth relative to H2 2022 at the low end and 46%
growth at the high end
o FY 2023 bookings performance in the range of $7.1m to
$8.8m
-- Forecast closing cash position as of 31 December 2023 of $16.0m to $16.5m
The pipeline has been appropriately cleansed and qualified, and
management is confident that what remains is robust and of high
quality. The Q4 activity started well as evidenced by the already
announced contract expansion with NatWest and a material renewal
from US insurer HCSC, with a combined total of $1.3m in bookings.
The Q3 bookings reported plus the early Q4 bookings activity
announced result in H2 bookings total to date of $3.0m.
Overall, Cirata's pipeline continues to be in the early stages
of a rebuild and we are entirely focused on building a strong basis
for growth in 2024 in line with the Company's Turnaround Plan. W e
continue to target cashflow break even as we exit 2024 and move
into 2025.
Approach to Disclosure of New Contracts
During FY23, Cirata has communicated news of new contracts and
renewals to investors which included smaller contracts to disclose
the ongoing progress being made in re-engaging with current and
prospective customers and the positioning of Cirata for growth and
success.
Going forward intra-quarter, the Company will adopt a policy of
only announcing material customer wins and renewals.
Summary data on all deals will be captured within quarterly
trading updates.
Stephen Kelly, Chief Executive Officer, commented.
" Our turnaround plan is developing momentum, and our collective
focus now is squarely on growth and tracking towards cash-flow
breakeven. We are pleased with the level of engagement with both
our partners and customers. It has been a period of "root and
branch" positive changes with a new Board, new Management Team and
new Company name and brand. These are early days in the Company's
transition and although we can see the green shoots of progress as
evidenced by recent contract announcements , we realize that our
future success relies on a continued relentless focus on growth and
execution."
This announcement contains inside information for the purposes
of Article 7 of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) 596/2014 as it
forms part of UK domestic law by virtue of the European Union
(Withdrawal) Act 2018 ("MAR"), and is disclosed in accordance with
the company's obligations under Article 17 of MAR.
This announcement contains information that qualifies or may
qualify as inside information. The person responsible for arranging
the release of this announcement on behalf of Cirata plc is Larry
Webster, Company Secretary.
For further information, please contact:
Cirata plc Via FTI Consulting
Stephen Kelly, Chief Executive Officer
Ijoma Maluza, Chief Financial Officer
Daniel Hayes, Investor Relations
FTI Consulting +44 (0)20 3727 1137
Matt Dixon / Kwaku Aning / Usama Ali
Stifel (Nomad and Joint Broker) +44 (0)20 7710 7600
Fred Walsh / Richard Short / Tom Marsh
Liberum (Joint Broker) +44 (0)20 3100 2000
Max Jones / Ben Cryer / Miquela Bezuidenhoudt
About Cirata
Cirata accelerates data-driven revenue growth by automating data
transfer and integration to modern cloud analytics and AI platforms
without downtime or disruption. With Cirata, data leaders can
leverage the power of AI and analytics across their entire
enterprise data estate to freely choose analytics technologies,
avoid vendor, platform, or cloud lock-in while making AI and
analytics faster, cheaper, and more flexible. Cirata's portfolio of
products and technology solutions make strategic adoption of modern
data analytics efficient and automated. For more information about
Cirata, visit www.cirata.com
Business Review
During the quarter, the business continued to drive customer and
partner engagement in parallel with the execution of the Turnaround
Plan. The completion of the Turnaround workstreams is expected to
be 31 December 2023, when all new working practices and processes
will be rolled into business as usual. Key Turnaround workstreams
are highlighted below.
Turnaround highlights
Rebrand
The transition to the new company brand, Cirata, was completed
October 4, 2023.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)
Within our ALM business we are focusing on 3 key areas; product,
services, and Go-To-Market. The ALM product suite has gone through
a prolonged period of underinvestment leading to effective
"mothballing". From direct customer input, it is clear that there
is a strong commitment to the ALM product line. Therefore, we are
intelligently increasing resource investment to the development and
maintenance of these solutions. This investment will bring our
highest value ALM products to a current point of relevancy, which
will increase retention of current customers by delivering
functionality enhancements in their upgrades, whilst enabling us to
target new customers that have been delayed or lost because of our
product gaps. Within this market segment, we also see opportunities
to increase both services and consulting revenue. Investment in the
Go-To-Market strategy will also modestly increase. This will not
only increase the traction of our ALM product offering but will
leverage our existing large enterprise account base to cross-sell
Data Integration solutions. This incremental investment will be
within our previously announced cost alignment programme.
Cirata Colleagues
The Company's most valuable resource is its people. Short-term
retention plans have been implemented for key colleagues, longer
term top talent retention programmes are being rolled out. The
Company is strengthening both its marketing and sales teams.
Training in business ethics, code of conduct, compliance and
controls have also been developed and rolled out and will be part
of a continuous program.
Go-To-Market
Many elements across the eight workstreams directly impact the
Go-To-Market strategy. Completed elements as at Q3 include focused
partner selection, account allocation, compensation plans,
professional services charging setup, account reviews and
customer-aligned roadmap.
Turnaround update
A summary of the progress on all 8 workstreams is presented in
the Turnaround Plan scorecard.
Turnaround Plan Scorecard
Workstreams Completed In Progress In Planning
Company Positioning Rebrand. Customer reference
Account Updates. accounts.
Positioning statement. Customer campaign
planning
--------------------------- -------------------------- -------------------
Recurring Revenues Delegation of Pricing model Updated pricing
Accountability aligned with customer tools.
(DoA), value.
Pricing structure
Q4 and beyond.
--------------------------- -------------------------- -------------------
Partner strategy Compensation plans. Recruitment of
Account allocation. key Sales talent.
Partner selection Revised partner
for business development. strategy.
Sales enablement
--------------------------- -------------------------- -------------------
Focused proposition Agreed roadmap. Clarity on proposition Industry analyst
Customer derived & focus. coverage refresh.
roadmap process.
--------------------------- -------------------------- -------------------
Customer first Top 10 Customer
outreach.
Services charging
schedule set up.
Professional services
opportunity review.
--------------------------- -------------------------- -------------------
Application Lifecycle Re-engagement
Management (ALM) campaign & cross-selling
leverage planning.
--------------------------- -------------------------- -------------------
Retention program Top Talent retention Top Talent retention Updated values
plan short term. plan long term. & culture roll
Ethics and Compliance Hybrid working out.
training. Office upgrade.
--------------------------- -------------------------- -------------------
Cost Realignment Target run rate
plan
--------------------------- -------------------------- -------------------
Key Performance Indicators
Management monitors the business against a series of Key
Performance Indicators. Management is sharing a subset of the key
indicators with investors so that they may more easily assess our
progress against these key performance measures.
KPI [3] 2022Q1 2022Q2 2022Q3 2022Q4 2023Q1 2023Q2 2023Q3
Bookings ($m) 2.5 4.8 1.9 2.2 2.1 0.7 1.7
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- --------
Total revenue ($m) 1.3 4.5 1.9 2.0 2.0 1.0 1.4
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- --------
-ALM Revenue ($m) 0.8 2.5 1.3 0.8 1.7 0.6 0.7
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- --------
-DM Revenue ($m) 0.5 2.0 0.6 1.2 0.3 0.4 0.7
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- --------
-Services Revenue 0.2 0.1 0 0 0.1 0.1 0
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- --------
#New DM contracts 4 1 2 2 2 1 2
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- --------
#New DM Logos 3 1 1 1 2 1 2
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- --------
#Contracts >$250K 3 4 3 1 2 0 3
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- --------
Cash Overheads ($m) 9.4 10.1 10 11.1 9.4 8.2 7.0 [4]
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- --------
Cash Balance ($m) 21.3 32.7 26.3 19.1 9.3 3.2 23.3
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- --------
Table abbreviations: DM denotes Data Migrator and is a Data
Integration solution: Use cases include Data Modernisation,
Disaster recovery, and Hybrid and Multicloud. ALM denotes
Application Lifecycle Management.
General updates
Further to the announced appointment of Xenia Walters and Chris
Baker as Independent Non-Executive Directors to the Cirata Board of
Directors, a process has been instigated to appoint a permanent
Chair of the Board of Directors. Ken Lever remains as interim Chair
and has expressed his desire to be included in the process for the
permanent appointment.
[1] All reported data relating to the Q3 trading update are
unaudited.
[2] ALM renewals above $200K in the quarter include Siemens
Industry Software, Apple, and Allianz Life Assurance.
[3] Q3 KPI's unaudited.
[4] Preliminary estimate of cash overheads.
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