LONDON (Alliance News) - Utilitywise PLC Wednesday said it expects revenue for the last financial year to be "slightly ahead" of expectations and substantially up from the previous year as it announced its deputy chief executive has resigned from the company, though it warned its earnings will miss market expectations.
The business energy and water consultancy firm also said its Deputy Chief Executive Andrew Richardson has resigned, whilst the board has appointed Steven Atwell from Sage as its new managing director of the Enterprise division.
The company said it expects revenue for the financial year ended July 31 to come in "slightly ahead" of expectations at around GBP69 million, which would be up from the GBP48.6 million reported in the last financial year.
However, due to ongoing investment in its marketing division, European sales trials and staff in the second half of the financial year, Utilitywise is expecting earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for the year to be "slightly below market expectations," it said.
Utilitywise said it "significantly increased" the amount of energy consultants it had working for the Enterprise division, which focuses on small to medium-sized business, in the second half of the financial year. The headcount stood at 610 at the end of July compared to 449 at the end of January.
At the end of the financial year, the company reported net debt of GBP7.5 million.
The Enterprise division secured a "strong" level of new business in the second half of the year through contract extensions and in acquiring new customers. Currently, the division is retaining around 80% of its contracts.
"Whilst revenue from contract extensions remained a significant feature of the second half, the board anticipates that new business will be the primary driver of growth in the Enterprise division going forward," said the company.
In June and July alone, the Enterprise division generated GBP16.0 million of gross revenue, which Utilitywise said was a "record level". At the end of July, the division had a revenue pipeline of GBP26.2 million which has not been recognised in the financial year ended July 31, comprised of a mix of new business and contract extensions.
"The Enterprise division continues to perform well in a fragmented market that offers substantial headroom for further growth," said Utilitywise.
The Enterprise division will also be run by Steven Atwell, who has been appointed as the divisions new managing director. Atwell joins Utilitywise from Sage Group PLC where he spent 25 years in various senior leadership roles including, more recently, managing director of Sage's SMB business across the UK and Ireland.
The Corporate division, which focuses on larger companies, "performed well" in the second half of the financial year.
"This was a period of further progress and significant expansion for the group. We have increased our investment in order to support our growth plans and, as a result, we are in a strong position to continue the group's growth momentum," said Chief Executive Geoff Thompson.
"Fuelling and sustaining our growth is key and, as such, we now have significantly more Energy Consultants acquiring new customers than at any time in the group's history and, importantly, the internal infrastructure sufficiently bolstered to support them," he added.
In a separate statement Wednesday, the company said Deputy Chief Executive Andrew Richardson has resigned from the company and will leave in the next couple of months to "allow him to take a break from work and to pursue other interests," said the company.
Utilitywise will report its full year results for the year ended July 31 in the last week of October.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
