LONDON (Alliance News) - Monitise PLC Tuesday said its first-half pretax loss widened amid its continued transition away from upfront licence revenue to a subscription model, as speculation about potential suitors mounts after the payments company put itself up for sale last month.
Monitise, which provides mobile banking software, has been the subject of reports suggesting that US technology companies such as FIS, Oracle and IBM are potential bidders for the company.
Within its interim results statement for the six months to the end of December 2014, Monitise said it has had "positive discussions with market-leading players" under a strategic review initated last month, when the company cut its revenue guidance for the current financial year and warned that its EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) loss also was likely to widen.
Reiterating an expectation of reporting EBITDA profit in the 2016 full year, Chairman Peter Ayliffe said Tuesday the "positive" talks, together with the support of the Monitise's strategic partners and clients, underpins the board's confidence in the company.
However, Monitise's results showed the scale of the losses facing the company, with pretax loss for the six months widening to GBP58.4 million from GBP23.3 million in the corresponding period last year.
Revenue fell to GBP42.4 million from GBP46.5 million, while operating costs before depreciation, amortisation, impairments and share-based payments increased to GBP55.0 million from GBP44.0 million.
The company's EBITDA loss widened to GBP30.8 million from GBP10.2 million.
Nevertheless, the company reiterated that it expects 2015 full-year revenue to be between GBP90 million and GBP100 million, with an EBITDA loss of between GBP40 million and GBP50 million.
In addition, the company said it expects its full-year 2016 cost base to be be "materially lower" than current consensus of about GBP180 million.
Monitise also said its cloud-based central platform will launch in April 2015, adding that it is seeing interest from new and existing clients in the money service.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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