TIDMZOO
RNS Number : 9453V
Zoo Digital Group PLC
20 April 2021
20 April 2021
ZOO DIGITAL GROUP PLC
("ZOO", the "Group" or the "Company")
Trading Update
Accelerated Growth
ZOO Digital Group plc (AIM: ZOO), the leading provider of
end-to-end cloud-based localisation and media services to the
global entertainment industry, today provides a further update
regarding its trading for the financial year ended March 2021.
Revenues for the full year are now expected to be $39.5 million
(FY20: $29.8 million), an acceleration of growth over the prior
year of 33% and ahead of previous management guidance of at least
$38 million. EBITDA (adjusted for share-based payments) is expected
to more than double from the prior year to approximately $4.5
million (FY20: $2.1 million). Net cash on 31 March 2021, prior to
the receipt of proceeds of the recent share placing, was $2.9
million (FY20: $0.7 million) reflecting strong cash generation and
tight management of costs.
The past year has seen an accelerated evolution of the
entertainment sector as the pandemic temporarily stalled the
production of new titles and consumer take-up of on-demand
streaming services has grown considerably. Some film and TV
productions have started to resume and the second half of calendar
year 2021 is expected to see the completion of significant numbers
of new titles.
Several direct-to-consumer streaming video services are now
available from leading US media organisations, all of which are
expected to be offered internationally in local languages in due
course. A number of these platforms are investing heavily in
international series that will also require localisation into
multiple languages. These factors, together with ongoing
initiatives to repurpose large back catalogues of content for
distribution through streaming platforms, are creating positive
industry dynamics and structural drivers for ZOO.
Recognising the significant opportunities that lie ahead, ZOO
has accelerated its investment in its technology, infrastructure
and service capacity, and has already taken steps to grow its
international footprint. To support this, the Company completed a
successful, oversubscribed fundraising of GBP7.4 million ($10.3
million) on 31 March 2021 with existing and new institutional and
other investors.
Trading in the first weeks of the 2022 financial year has been
strong with a significant pipeline of customer projects committed
for Q1. With a robust pipeline and continued momentum, the Board
remains confident in its ability to deliver profitable progress in
FY22.
Stuart Green, Chief Executive Officer , said:
"We have delivered a strong second half performance as streaming
services seek to grow their customer bases internationally and on a
global scale.
"We have invested ahead of events and are building out our
international footprint to service globalising customers.
"Looking ahead, we expect new title production to resume and
back catalogue migration to continue. Q1 of our new financial year
has begun well."
Gillian Wilmot, Chairman, said:
"These trading results and the success of our over-subscribed
GBP7.4m fundraise reinforce both our strategy and the capability of
our executive team to deliver."
The information communicated in this announcement includes
inside information for the purposes of Article 7 Regulation
596/2014.
Enquiries:
ZOO Digital Group plc +44 (0)114 241 3700
Stuart Green
Phillip Blundell
Stifel +44 (0)20 7710 7600
Fred Walsh / Luisa Orsini Baroni
Instinctif Partners +44 (0)20 7457 2020
Matthew Smallwood / Kay Larsen zoo@instinctif.com
Rosie Driscoll / Hannah Campbell
About ZOO Digital Group plc:
ZOO Digital supports major Hollywood studios and streaming
services to globalise their content and reach audiences everywhere,
by providing world-leading, technology-enabled localisation and
media services.
Founded in 2001, ZOO Digital operates from hubs in Los Angeles,
London and Dubai, with a development and production centre in
Sheffield, UK. The company is targeting $100m sales in the medium
term.
The Group provides media services through its platforms that
include: ZOOsubs, ZOOdubs, ZOOstudio. Its full-service proposition
delivers the end-to-end services required to prepare both original
and catalogue content for digital distribution; these services
include dubbing, subtitling & captioning, metadata creation
& localisation, artwork localisation and media processing.
Alongside this offering, ZOO also provides its customers with
management platforms and strategic solutions to support their own
internal globalisation operations.
ZOO is a go-to service partner for media businesses looking to
globalise their content across different territories, languages and
distribution platforms. Using its innovative technology-enabled
approach, ZOO helps its customers to reduce time to market, lower
costs and deliver high quality products to their global audiences.
The business has frameworks in place with all major Hollywood
studios and streaming services. Its customers include Disney,
NBCUniversal, HBO and ViacomCBS.
ZOO's competitive advantage arises from three interlinking
factors - the leading role it has played in the digital
transformation of its sector; the world class proprietary platforms
that it develops to enable this transformation; and the global
supply chain of thousands of freelancers, working collaboratively
in ZOO's platforms, which delivers services that scale easily to
meet demand. These factors combine to make ZOO uniquely geared to
capitalise on new market opportunities in a fast-paced and
constantly evolving industry.
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END
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April 20, 2021 02:00 ET (06:00 GMT)
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