Ithaca Energy Regulatory News (ITH)

24 Nov 2005 07:03

ITIS Holdings PLC24 November 2005 ITIS Holdings plc (the "Company" or "ITIS") Results for the six months ended 30th September 2005 ITIS Holdings plc, a leading road traffic information and data specialist, ispleased to announce its results for the six months ended 30th September 2005. Highlights • Turnover up 37% to £6.3m (2004: £4.6m); • Profit before tax £0.46m (2004: Loss of £1.54m) demonstrates significant turnaround in performance; • Strong cash balance of £4.7m up from £3.4m at 31st March 2005; • Continued dominance of the RDS-TMC (Radio Data Service - Traffic Message Channel) market through vehicle manufacturer and personal navigation device customers; • Important new data supply deal with TfL to provide historic and real time data to the TfL Journey Planner website; and • Agreement reached with the Highways Agency and Hampshire County Council for the first deployment of CFVD (Cellular Floating Vehicle Data) in England to address the continuing challenge of traffic congestion. Stuart Marks, Chief Executive of ITIS Holdings plc, commented: "With these first half year results the business has now achieved a secondconsecutive half year profit and has been cash generative and profitable sinceOctober 2004. Following the trading statement on 16th November 2005 I canconfirm that current trading in the UK is in line with market expectations andahead in some areas. ITIS is a leading supplier of real time and historic traffic information with anestablished operational infrastructure, focussed strategy and broad base ofclients and applications. We are encouraged by the continued interest worldwidein our CFVD technology and we remain confident that it will become the leadingtraffic technology based upon functionality and cost. The Board believe that weare well positioned to take advantage of the growing demand for accurate andcost effective traffic information." Financial Overview For the six months ended 30th September 2005, Group turnover increased 37% to£6.3m (2004: £4.6m). With the majority of the cost base fixed, this resulted ina profit before taxation of £0.46m as against a loss before taxation of £1.54mfor the six month period to 30th September 2004. Whilst the turnover increased,cost of sales actually fell due to reducing one element of the cost associatedwith the collection of traffic incident data. These results demonstrate againthat our operational infrastructure is capable of supporting incrementalbusiness and that we are able to control our costs effectively. Cash balances at 30th September 2005 remained strong at £4.7m as against £3.4mat 31st March 2005. During this period the company received cash proceeds of£0.77m from the exercise of options. Business Review RDS-TMC (Radio Data Service - Traffic Message Channel) ITIS continues to dominate the delivery of traffic information to vehicles,personal navigation devices, PDA's and mobile phones. Our service is nowprovided to sixteen car manufacturers; BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, Jaguar, LandRover, Lexus, Mini, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Porsche, Renault, Saab, Subaru, Toyota,Vauxhall (GM) and Volvo. On 21st September 2005 we announced that Toyota andLexus had renewed their contract with us for a further three years. Aftermarket and portable device customers include AA Navigator, Alpine, CoPilot, Harman Becker, Kenwood, Naviflash, Navman, Pioneer, Siemens VDO, SonyEurope, and Tom Tom. Navigation systems are becoming cheaper and more mainstream both in theaftermarket and with the vehicle manufacturers themselves. As an example, 45%of orders for the new Lexus IS250 have the £2,710 Multimedia Pack specifiedwhich amongst other things, includes satellite navigation. We expect to seecontinued growth for satellite navigation systems. By the end of calendar year2005, we are forecasting that over 150,000 navigation systems will be enabledwith the ITIS TMC service. Our real time traffic information, which is a combination of speed and flowrecords from Floating Vehicle Data (FVD) and incident information provided to usunder an exclusive contract with Trafficlink, gives us the highest quality dataacross an unrivalled number of roads. IVR's (Interactive Voice Response) ITIS operates short dial traffic information services with the AA, Vodafone,T-Mobile and various other networks. Whilst usage of this service variesaccording to the weather and level of congestion, we have continually investedin making our service easier to use and in providing the customer with greaterfunctionality in order to encourage repeat usage. Our customer numbers continueto increase whilst usage, call duration and revenues all continue to growstrongly. GOVERNMENT We now have two contracts with Transport for London (TfL). One contractprovides real time traffic data for use by TfL in their control room, and thesecond provides data to TfL's Journey Planner website. Other public sectorcontracts include the provision of historic data for England to the Departmentfor Transport (DfT) and control room applications to various local councils. Under our agreement with the DfT, all local councils receive some historic datafrom ITIS. In addition, we have enjoyed some success in selling real time dataand more detailed historic information to a small number of these councils.Sales in this area take time because our data is relatively new and ourcustomers need to undertake rigorous evaluation. In the medium term, as demandfor traffic management tools becomes more intense, we are confident that thiswill become an important revenue stream. Government is reliant on the private sector to support its plans for better roadtraffic information and our progress with organisations like TfL are indicativeof our future role. Many of the applications that we have developed in thisarea provide us with important reference sites that have global relevance. CELLULAR FLOATING VEHICLE DATA (CFVD) CFVD depends on our highly developed algorithms and good quality data frommobile networks. Cooperation from the networks and their ability to provide uswith the data we require can vary, not only from country to country but fromnetwork to network. Given the critical nature of the networks' involvement, welook for markets where we can develop a strong relationship with our chosennetwork partner, combined with private or public sector revenues. We have proven in the US, Belgium, Scotland and Israel that our technology isrobust, highly accurate and scalable. We also have the necessary experience tohandle complex and large deployments. Profits growth in ITIS' UK business has been achieved with a largely fixed costbase. CFVD operates in a similar way, with technology development costs beingincurred ahead of revenues. We have a significant R&D operation based in Israeland a dedicated team in the UK, all whom are currently supporting existingdeployments and are developing further the software and algorithms. The sizeand experience of the team is such that additional business can be accommodatedbased on the existing infrastructure. The strength of interest from potential customers is based upon not only ourtechnology but our proven business models in the UK. Both the private andpublic sectors require a supplier that can not only deliver the data but that isalso experienced at deploying applications which are relevant to the end userand can drive revenue. In this respect, ITIS is unique in being able to combinethese two resources. CFVD - UK We are pleased to announce today that we are taking the first steps to deployingCFVD in England. Given our strong contacts with Government and the automotiveindustry we believe that CFVD will open new revenue streams and supplement theexisting Floating Vehicle Data network to put ITIS in a unique position in beingable to merge these two complimentary data streams. The South East of Englandexperiences by far the worst congestion and it is on this area that we intend tofocus. Our first project will involve the Highways Agency and Hampshire CountyCouncil and will initially cover the M3 corridor between the South coast andLondon as well as strategic corridors along the M25 and M4, which will allowdetailed evaluation of both urban and interurban networks. In Scotland we already supply Floating Vehicle Data to the Scottish Executiveand have been involved in a trial covering approximately 496 miles of interurbanroads around Edinburgh and to the east of the city. Our network partner, O2,provides data for this and whilst we are pleased with the results we awaitformal evaluation by the Scottish Executive. We believe that the deployment inScotland and England will provide solid foundations for us to further developCFVD across the UK. CFVD - International There is considerable interest worldwide regarding CFVD. We have successfully completed the deployment of our technology in Antwerp,Belgium with our project partners the Flemish Government and Proximus, thelargest mobile network in Belgium. The results of this initial deployment willbe made public in a joint statement with our partners and we believe there isconsiderable scope to develop further our business in Belgium and across Europe. In the US, our exclusive negotiations with the State of Missouri Department OfTransportation to deploy CFVD state-wide are progressing. However, as announcedon Wednesday 16th November 2005, due to the timing for delivering some of theassociated milestones, it is highly unlikely that any revenues from thiscontract will fall into this financial year. Our deployment in the state of Maryland provides live flow and speed data andtravel times from 1,000 miles of roadways in Baltimore. As time goes on, theMaryland Department of Transportation will have access to a growing data setthat will include travel times and speeds on expressways as well as major andminor arterials. In partnership with Delcan.Net, we plan to expand the servicesthroughout the state and across the region to include services such as IVR andcustomer access via the internet. NavTrak NavTrak traded strongly during the period under review and is benefiting from agrowing reputation and increasing sales from our principle automotive customers,Bentley Motors, Land Rover, Ferrari and Maserati. We continue to develop ourbusiness outside the UK by partnering with organisations who can support theNavTrak brand and enable us to support our customers in their key markets.Consistency and quality of service are very important to the automotive industryand therefore the ability for a manufacturer to make one vehicle trackingproduct standard throughout the world is an attractive proposition. Current Trading & Prospects As announced on 16th November 2005, our UK business continues to perform in linewith market forecasts and in some areas is better than expected. We are pleasedthat the management team have been able to grow the UK business significantlywhilst expanding into new markets overseas. Whilst we are disappointed that additional revenues from the US will be delayed,we remain confident that CFVD will become the leading traffic technology basedon functionality and cost. With our established infrastructure, experienced operational team and focussedstrategy, the Board is confident that we will continue to grow and tradeprofitably and that our cash balances will increase accordingly. Contact: Stuart Marks, Chief Executive ITIS Holdings plc - 07768 454700 Ginny Pulbrook / Ged Brumby Citigate Dewe Rogerson - 0207 638 9571 Consolidated profit and loss account Note Six months to Six months to Year ended 30 September 30 September 31 March 2005 2004 2005 Unaudited Unaudited Audited £ £ £Group turnover 7 6,289,853 4,604,880 10,159,268Cost of sales (3,044,266) (3,518,780) (6,667,524) __________ __________ __________Gross profit 3,245,587 1,086,100 3,491,744 Operating costs (2,859,822) (2,730,358) (5,013,253) __________ __________ __________Operating profit (loss) 385,765 (1,644,258) (1,521,509)Group interest receivable and similar income 73,214 100,404 176,943Group interest payable and similar charges (729) (354) (1,414) __________ __________ __________Profit (loss) on ordinary activities before taxation 7 458,250 (1,544,208) (1,345,980)Tax on profit (loss) on ordinary activities (6,528) (5,358) 136,417 __________ __________ __________Profit (loss) on ordinary activities after taxation 451,722 (1,549,566) (1,209,563)Minority interests (4,578) (4,876) (1,495) __________ __________ __________Profit (loss) for the financial period 447,144 (1,554,442) (1,211,058) __________ __________ __________Basic and diluted profit (loss) per ordinary share (p) 3 0.5 (1.6) (1.3) __________ __________ __________ Consolidated statement of total recognised gains and losses Six months to Six months to Year ended 30 September 30 September 31 March 2005 2004 2005 Unaudited Unaudited Audited £ £ £Profit (loss) for the financial period 447,144 (1,554,442) (1,211,058)Currency translation difference 1,893 3,571 (2,652) __________ __________ __________Total recognised gains (losses) relating to the period 449,037 (1,550,871) (1,213,710) __________ __________ __________ Consolidated Balance Sheet Note 30 September 30 September 31 March 2005 2004 2005 Unaudited Unaudited Audited £ £ £Fixed assetsIntangible assets 733,109 963,704 848,407Tangible assets 515,408 413,244 493,286 __________ __________ __________ 1,248,517 1,376,948 1,341,693 __________ __________ __________Current assetsStocks 286,493 99,752 353,551Debtors- due within one year 3,189,698 2,143,808 2,963,417- due after more than one year 55,000 740,196 70,000Cash at bank and in hand 4,718,100 5,464,140 3,413,341 __________ __________ __________ 8,249,291 8,447,896 6,800,309Creditors: Amounts falling due within one year (3,605,133) (5,195,805) (3,797,421) __________ __________ __________Net current assets 4,644,158 3,252,091 3,002,888 __________ __________ __________Total assets less current liabilities 5,892,675 4,629,039 4,344,581Creditors: Amounts falling due after more than one year (811,536) (953,429) (403,177)Provisions for liabilities and charges (109,766) (263,479) (195,493) __________ __________ __________Net assets 7 4,971,373 3,412,131 3,745,911 __________ __________ __________ Capital and reservesCalled-up share capital 5,230,270 5,186,286 5,186,286Share premium account 38,070,740 37,342,877 37,342,877Profit and loss account (38,338,018) (39,124,216) (38,787,055) __________ __________ __________Shareholders' funds 4,962,992 3,404,947 3,742,108 6Minority Interests - equity 8,381 7,184 3,803 __________ __________ __________Total capital employed 4,971,373 3,412,131 3,745,911 __________ __________ __________Shareholders' funds may be analysed as:Equity interests 1,745,124 187,079 524,240Non-equity interests 3,217,868 3,217,868 3,217,868 __________ __________ __________ 4,962,992 3,404,947 3,742,108 __________ __________ __________ Consolidated Cash Flow Statement Note Six months to Six months Year ended to 30 September 30 September 31 March 2005 2004 2005 Unaudited Unaudited Audited £ £ £Net cash inflow (outflow) from operating activities 4 505,789 (576,777) (1,648,654) __________ __________ __________Returns on investments and servicing of financeInterest element of finance lease rental payments (729) (354) (1,414)Interest received 73,214 100,404 176,943 __________ __________ __________Net cash inflow from returns on investments and servicing of finance 72,485 100,050 175,529 __________ __________ __________TaxationForeign tax paid - - (2,579)Research and development tax credit 128,613 78,137 78,137 __________ __________ __________Net cash inflow from taxation 128,613 78,137 75,558 __________ __________ __________Capital expenditure and financial investmentPurchase of tangible fixed assets (161,523) (78,193) (296,847)Sale of tangible fixed assets - 9,200 9,200Purchase of intangible fixed assets - - (816,170) __________ __________ __________Net cash outflow from capital expenditure (161,523) (68,993) (1,103,817) __________ __________ __________Cash inflow (outflow) before financing 545,364 (467,583) (2,501,384) __________ __________ __________FinancingIssue of share capital 771,847 - -Capital element of finance lease rental payments (14,345) (114,345) (128,691) __________ __________ __________Net cash inflow (outflow) from financing 757,502 (114,345) (128,691) __________ __________ __________Increase (decrease) in cash 5 1,302,866 (581,928) (2,630,075) __________ __________ __________ Notes (unaudited) 1. Accounting policies The interim accounts have been prepared using accounting policies stated in theCompany's Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2005 and have been neither audited nor reviewed. 2. Preparation of the interim financial information The summarised results for the six months to 30 September 2005 and thecomparative results for the half year to 30 September 2004 are non-statutory accounts within the meaning of Section 240 of the Companies Act 1985 and have not been reported upon by the auditors under Section 235 of the Companies Act 1985. The comparative figures for the year ended 31 March 2005 are an abridged versionof the Company's full accounts and, together with other financial information contained in these interim results, do not constitute statutory accounts of ITIS Holdings PLC within the meaning of section 240 of the Companies Act 1985. The statutory accounts for the year ended 31 March 2005 have been deliveredto the Registrar of Companies. The report of the auditors was not qualified anddid not contain a statement under Section 237 (2) and (3) of the Companies Act 1985. 3. Basic and fully diluted profit (loss) per ordinary share Six months to Six months to Year ended 30 September 30 September 31 March 2005 2004 2005 Unaudited Unaudited Audited £ £ £Profit (loss) for the financial period 447,144 (1,554,442) (1,211,058) __________ __________ __________Weighted average number of ordinary shares in issue 97,446,256 96,243,669 96,243,669 __________ __________ __________Basic and fully diluted profit (loss) per ordinary 0.5 (1.6) (1.3)share (p) __________ __________ __________ 4. Reconciliation of operating loss to cash outflow from operating activities Six months to Six months to Year ended 30 September 30 September 31 March 2005 2004 2005 Unaudited Unaudited Audited £ £ £Operating profit (loss) 385,765 (1,644,258) (1,521,509)Depreciation and amortisation of licences 254,699 145,213 395,419Decrease (increase) in stocks 67,058 57,162 (196,637)(Increase) decrease in debtors (339,894) 563,665 267,399Increase (decrease) in creditors 223,888 366,928 (463,545)Decrease in provisions (85,727) (64,840) (132,836)(Profit) loss on disposal of fixed assets - (647) 3,055 __________ __________ __________Net cash inflow (outflow) from operating 505,789 (576,777) (1,648,654)activities __________ __________ __________ 5. Reconciliation of net cash flow to movement in net funds Six months to Six months to Year ended 30 September 30 September 31 March 2005 2004 2005 Unaudited Unaudited Audited £ £ £Increase (decrease) in cash in the period 1,302,866 (581,928) (2,630,075)Cash inflow from decrease in lease funding 14,345 114,345 128,691 __________ __________ __________Change in net funds resulting from cash flows 1,317,211 (467,583) (2,501,384)New finance lease - (57,381) -Other non cash changes - - 242,619Translation differences 1,893 3,571 (2,652) __________ __________ __________Change in net funds in the period 1,319,104 (521,393) (2,261,417)Net funds brought forward 3,384,651 5,646,068 5,646,068 __________ __________ __________Net funds carried forward 4,703,755 5,124,675 3,384,651 __________ __________ __________ 6. Reconciliation of movements in Group shareholders' funds Six months to Six months to Year ended 30 September 30 September 31 March 2005 2004 2005 Unaudited Unaudited Audited £ £ £Profit (loss) for the financial period 447,144 (1,554,442) (1,211,058)Other recognised gains and losses relating to the period 1,893 3,571 (2,652)Issue of share capital 771,847 - - __________ __________ __________Net increase (reduction) in Group shareholders' funds 1,220,884 (1,550,871) (1,213,710)Opening Group shareholders' funds 3,742,108 4,955,818 4,955,818 __________ __________ __________Closing Group shareholders' funds 4,962,992 3,404,947 3,742,108 __________ __________ __________ 7. Segmental analysis The Directors are of the opinion that the Group operates in a single segment,that of the provision of telematic products and services. Hence all turnover,profits and net assets relate to this class of business. Six months to Six months to Year ended 30 September 30 September 31 March 2005 2004 2005 Unaudited Unaudited Audited £ £ £Turnover by originUnited Kingdom 6,108,977 4,604,880 10,062,572Other 180,876 - 96,696 __________ __________ __________Group 6,289,853 4,604,880 10,159,268 __________ __________ __________Turnover by destinationUnited Kingdom 6,103,852 4,604,880 10,032,846Other 186,001 - 126,422 __________ __________ __________Group 6,289,853 4,604,880 10,159,268 __________ __________ __________Profit (loss) before taxationUnited Kingdom 735,916 (1,352,849) (760,442)Other (277,666) (191,359) (585,538) __________ __________ __________Group 458,250 (1,544,208) (1,345,980) __________ __________ __________Net assetsUnited Kingdom 4,960,939 3,409,229 3,734,528Other 10,434 2,902 11,383 __________ __________ __________Group 4,971,373 3,412,131 3,745,911 __________ __________ __________ 8. Interim statement A copy of this announcement will be circulated to all registered shareholders ofthe Company and copies will be available for members of the public uponapplication to the Registered Office at Station House, Stamford New Road,Altrincham, Cheshire, WA14 1EP. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange