ACC.L Regulatory News (ACC)

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.

Access Intelligence plc

("Access Intelligence" or the "Company")

Trading Update

Access Intelligence (AIM: ACC), the technology innovator delivering Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions for the global marketing and communications industries, announces an update on trading for the year ended 30 November 2022.

Year to 30 November 2022

Access Intelligence has traded robustly in 2022 delivering excellent revenue growth of 97% and Adjusted EBITDA ahead of consensus expectations1 whilst continuing to transform and integrate the Isentia business acquired in Q4 2021. In the period, the Company launched Pulsar into the Australia and New Zealand ("ANZ") market and remains encouraged by customer engagement with its expanded global product offering.

During the year, the Company has continued to optimise its software platform and associated services for the APAC market. Advancements have been made in the Company's media monitoring offering, including expanded coverage of print and online news, as well as significant enhancements to broadcast monitoring and analytics. An integration with NewsGuard also helps communications professionals to quickly detect potential sources of misinformation before they spread and become damaging to their client or brand.

At the 2022 AMEC Awards, a global awards programme for communications measurement, Access Intelligence won five awards and was nominated for a further six. The awards aim to recognise and celebrate exceptional work and showcase the importance of research, measurement, insights and analytics in communications.

The Board expects total revenue for the financial year to be approximately £65.6m (2021: £33.3m, 97% growth, 14% organic growth2). It is expected that Adjusted EBITDA will be approximately £2.3m (2021: loss of £0.5m), ahead of consensus expectations1. Net cash at 30 November 2022 was approximately £4.8 million, also ahead of consensus expectations1.

Despite the challenges that wider economic conditions present in terms of overall revenue growth, Access Intelligence has achieved its target Adjusted EBITDA for the year through the realisation of greater than expected synergies being delivered ahead of schedule.

Performance in Europe remains on track with improving Annualised Recurring Revenue ('ARR') and margin, whilst the Company's sales in North America have been challenged by a slowdown in decision making at the Enterprise level. Overall ARR growth in the EMEA & NA region for the year was £2.5m.

New client wins in the EMEA & NA region during the second half include Advertising Standards Authority, Airbnb, Asahi, Associated British Foods, Aston Villa FC, Chivas Brothers, CNN International, Grant Thornton, House of Commons, HSBC, Hubspot, Jaguar Land Rover, Lidl, Lloyds Register, News Corp, NFU Mutual, Office for National Statistics, Save The Children, Severn Trent Water and Tik Tok.

In APAC, management has focussed on ensuring that it has a stable and profitable core business to provide the Company with the platform from which to grow in the region in 2023 and beyond. It has achieved substantial synergies in the region ahead of expectations and ahead of schedule and has sold a number of deals that combine established media monitoring and insights services in the region alongside Access Intelligence's audience intelligence offering.

As well as extracting further synergies, the Company focussed on ensuring it was delivering long term profitable recurring revenue contracts in the region and this led to management electing not to renew a number of contracts where the Company would not be able to deliver them profitably. Having regard to the Company's extraction from these loss making contracts, overall ARR in the region declined by £1.4m.

New client wins and client winbacks in the APAC region during the year include Commerce Commission, Edelman, Esso, Havas, Kiwibank, Moderna, QIC, Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, Samsung, SA Power Networks, Transgrid and the University of Sydney. Additionally, we have seen positive momentum with Pulsar sales in APAC, with sales to Cricket Australia, Dementia Australia, University of Otago, Sherson Willis, BizCover and Genea Fertility.

Overall ARR for the year across all regions increased by £1.1m, resulting in a total ARR at 30 November 2022 of £60.0m (2021: £58.9m).

Outlook

In 2023 management will continue the process of transformation. The existing Isentia product in the APAC region will be replatformed to the Company's next generation product providing integrated media monitoring, broadcast and social intelligence.

The new platform will allow Access Intelligence to offer its customers deep audience understanding that is fully actionable - creating an on-going loop between insight, strategy, execution, and optimisation. It will bring together best-in-class audience perspectives, with clear implications for our client's strategy and subsequent actions allowing them to respond in real time to intelligence, and to continually learn from connections.

This will provide the Company with clear market differentiation against its competition and customers will benefit from a significantly enhanced suite of products and services. This next generation product is on track for launch in Q2 2023, opening up a significant upsell and cross sell opportunity in the region and enabling further margin improvement.

In Europe, the Company expects to see an acceleration in ARR growth compared to 2022 whilst in North America, the Company is assuming that the current slowdown in decision making in the Company's target market will continue into 2023. A streamlined team will target a smaller number of high value, high margin deals through a focus on developing enterprise corporate accounts to improve long term ARR.

In current market conditions, core products have continued to perform very well but risk remains around the pace of growth of the Company's premium enterprise intelligence offering where strategic budgets are under pressure. Pipeline remains strong although contract conversion continues to be a risk given the prevailing economic climate.

Across all regions, management are focussed on improving margin and cash generation as a priority during 2023, with the group targeting a substantially improved Adjusted EBITDA margin by 2024. 

Christopher Satterthwaite, Non-Executive Chairman of the Company, said: 

"Access Intelligence has seen a year of continued transformation with the integration of Isentia progressing well. The EMEA and North America region has continued to deliver ARR growth including a significant number of blue-chip customers wins, whilst in APAC the focus has been on ensuring that the business has a profitable core to support future growth underpinned by the Company's next generation product release in Q2 2023.

In the near term, prevailing economic conditions are expected to continue to prolong sales cycles for some of the Company's larger strategic enterprise opportunities especially in the North American market, but management is focussed on ensuring that the business maintains a lean cost base to support margin enhancement and to protect cash flow. Access Intelligence remains well placed to take advantage of its global opportunity through its market leading products and award winning media insights offering.

Overall, the Board is pleased with the progress made during the year and remains very positive about the opportunity for the Company to deliver profitable growth."

1 The Board understands that consensus expectations for the Company's Adjusted EBITDA for 2022 is £1.8m and that consensus expectations for the Company's net cash position at 30 November 2022 is £4.1m.

2 Excluding Isentia, acquired September 2021.

For further information:

Access Intelligence plc 020 3426 4024

Joanna Arnold (CEO) / Mark Fautley (CFO)

finnCap Limited (Nominated Adviser and Broker) 020 7220 0500

Corporate Finance:

Marc Milmo / Fergus Sullivan

Corporate Broking:

Alice Lane / Sunila de Silva