Craneware Regulatory News (CRW)

Craneware plc

("Craneware", the "Group" or the "Company")

Trading Update

26 June 2013 - Craneware (AIM: CRW.L), the market leader in automated revenue integrity solutions for the US healthcare market, provides an update on trading for the year ending 30 June 2013.

The Group continues to see increased levels of sales activity and conversion of its growing sales pipeline into revenue in our underlying small and medium sized hospital business. Progress also continues to be made with a significant number of large sales opportunities. It has not, however, been possible to sign one of these large deals in this period due mainly to corporate activity within this customer base. Management expects that the likelihood of one of these deals closing before the end of the financial year is now low. In the past, at least one of these large sales deals has contributed to revenue growth in any individual year, as was the case in 2012.

As such, without the contribution from new large deals and with the final month of the financial year still to complete, the Board expects to report revenue for the year in a range of $41 million to $42 million and adjusted EBITDA in a range of $11.9 million to $12.6 million, both in line or marginally ahead of the prior year but below current market expectations.

Our historical success in large hospital networks and other 'routes to market' confirms the demand for our product set in this significant sector of the market. However, these sales are more complex and involve a much longer sales cycle which is inevitably harder to predict, particularly when further complicated by current high levels of corporate activity in this segment. The investment we made during the year in our sales force has produced the expected positive results in our underlying small and medium sized business. Looking forward, the Company will be dedicating more resources on large hospital networks and other routes to market to specifically focus on delivering revenue growth from these sectors on a more predictable basis.

Keith Neilson, CEO of Craneware,commented, "The success we have seen in our investment in sales is not fully reflected in these results due to the large deals we have in the pipeline not closing during this year. Although we believe we have been hampered in our efforts to close these deals by corporate activity within our customer base, this trend of consolidation will not ease. We will therefore continue to build our focused team dedicated to servicing these organisations which we believe will provide us with better predictability and ultimately a greater success in closing these deals in the future. Fiscal and regulatory pressures on all US hospitals continues to drive interest in our unique suite of solutions and we are confident in the ongoing strength and relevance of our position within the US healthcare market." 

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About Craneware

Founded in 1999, Craneware has headquarters in Edinburgh, Scotland with offices in Atlanta, Arizona, Massachusetts and Tennessee employing over 200 staff. Craneware is the leader in automated revenue integrity solutions that improve financial performance for healthcare organisations. Craneware's market-driven, SaaS solutions help hospitals and other healthcare providers more effectively price, charge, code and retain earned revenue for patient care services and supplies. This optimises reimbursement, increases operational efficiency and minimises compliance risk. By partnering with Craneware, clients achieve the visibility required to identify, address and prevent revenue leakage. To learn more, visit craneware.com and stoptheleakage.com