SIM.L Regulatory News (SIM)

SimiGon Ltd

("SimiGon" or the "Company")

Audited Full Year Results

SimiGon Ltd (LSE: SIM), a global leader in providing simulation and training solutions, announces its audited full year results for the year ended 31 December 2019 (the "Period").

Financial Highlights

· Revenues decreased by 3% to $4.88 million (2018: $5.03 million)

· Gross margin decreased to 63% (2018: 81%)

· Operating loss increased by 91% to $1.45 million (2018: $0.76 million)

· Net loss increased by 44% to $1.45 million (2018: $1.01 million)

· Basic and diluted loss per share of $0.03 (2018: loss per share $0.02)

· Liquid cash and cash equivalents of $6.04 million as at 31 December 2019 (2018: $6.00 million)

Operational Highlights

· Awarded a $1.8 million contract from a large international defense electronics company to design, develop and implement a C-130 virtual maintenance training solution.

· Secured additional $0.85 million contracts in aggregate with key European customers to provide licenses, maintenance and support services for the Customer's simulation training centers.

· Signed a Blanket Purchase Agreement ("BPA") with the U.S. Department of Defense Enterprise Software Initiative to establish agreed pricing and processes for government customers to purchase the Company's products and services.

· Secured an additional year of software and hardware warranties and support services for the United States Air Force T-6A Level 5 FAA Compliant Flight Training Device, valued at up to $1.41 million over the course of 12 months starting in April 2019.

· SimiGon was awarded with phase one of a United States Air Force ("USAF") contract to provide twelve (12) SIMbox-based F-15E Mixed Reality ("MR") training devices for USAF Air Combat Command ("ACC").

· SimiGon has been awarded with a strategic contract with the USAF to provide Virtual Reality ("VR") systems for Columbus Air Force Base.

· SimiGon won USAF contracts to provide Extended Reality ("XR") Solutions for Vance Air Force Base and Sheppard Air Force Base.

· Awarded a BPA from the USAF for the supply of XR Systems.

· Awarded a strategic contract by the United States Air Force ("USAF") to provide SIMbox-based T-6A MR training devices for USAF Undergraduate Pilot Training ("UPT") at Laughlin Air Force Base.

· Continued to support major military flight training programs including:

Ø The USAF Air Education and Training Command Undergraduate Remotely Piloted Aircraft Training ("URT");

Ø Support for Lockheed Martin's UK Military Flight Training System ("UKMFTS"); and

Ø Provide software and services as part of long-term relationship with a strategic European customer.

· Completed multiple delivery milestones for the $2 million Israeli Air Force ("IAF") F-16 Maintenance Trainer Program ("IAF F16 Maintenance Trainer") contract announced in June 2016 and for the T6A Simulation Based Trainers to the IAF Flight Academy contract ("IAF T6A") announced in September 2018.

· SimiGon has continued its ongoing R&D efforts to enhance simulation-based training across all hardware devices and position the Company to capitalize on new high growth market opportunities.

· Appointment of Jack Sarnicki as Chief Operating Officer of SimiGon Inc., the main trading subsidiary of the Company, and the addition of both Simon Bentley as Non-Executive Director and Ronit Schwartz as Independent Non-Executives Director to strengthen the composition of the Company's board.

Post Period Events (previously announced)

On January 13, 2020 D.D Goldstein Real Estates and Investment Ltd., which to the Company's knowledge acquired 1,500,000 shares in the Company during 2019, has filed two legal actions in the Tel Aviv District Court - a petition for leave to file a monetary claim concerning salaries on behalf of the Company and an action for prerogative relief concerning resolutions approved at the Company's annual general meeting held on December 30, 2019 regarding the appointment of directors and the determination of their compensation. Upon review of the claims and as of the date of this announcement, SimiGon do not foresee any potential financial obligation to the Company even if the court was to decide that these claims have merit (other than legal expenses of defending the claims). The Company has notified its insurers with respect to allegations against directors and has recorded in year 2019 a provision of $0.08 million for corporate retention to be paid to its insurers.

Coronavirus (COVID-19)

In March 2020 the World Health Organization declared coronavirus COVID-19 a global pandemic. COVID-19 threatens to be a disruptor to companies, supply chains and the world economy for at least the first half of 2020. In light of the uncertainty as to the severity and duration of the pandemic, the overall impact of COVID-19 on the Company's future revenues, profitability, liquidity and financial position is difficult to assess at this time.

As of the date of approval of 2019 financial statements, there has not been a significant impact on the Company's operations resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak and the Company had not received any cancelation notices from its customers in relation to active purchase orders as a result of COVID-19.

In order to reduce the chances that SimiGon's employees will be infected with COVID-19 while working inside the Company's offices, while assuring the continued efforts to improve SimiGon's technology capabilities and active program deliveries, some of SimiGon's employees have been instructed to work remotely from their homes.

Ami Vizer, SimiGon's Chief Executive Officer and Executive Chairman, commented: "SimiGon made significant strides this year in delivering and winning innovative training programs. While this did not result in higher revenues for the Period as compared to year 2018, the combination of contract wins and ongoing R&D efforts have created significant future growth potential and a return to profitability.

The Company is executing its strategy to deliver program milestones of long-term strategic contracts and continuing to position itself in the market as a leading technology provider for Extended Reality training solutions. SimiGon's ability to identify new markets and their need for cost effective training is exemplified throughout the Period and post-Period with multiple SIMbox-based XR training systems contracts awarded to the Company by the USAF and other customers. The Company entered 2020 with stronger technology and greater utilization of our SIMbox technology across more domains than before.

Though the overall impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) on the Company's business is hard to assess at the moment, the Company continues to position itself to deliver improved financial performance over the long term."

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014.

Enquiries:

Overview

During the Period the Company achieved successful delivery milestones of its strategic contracts. This includes milestones on the IAF F-16 Maintenance Trainer, C-130 virtual maintenance training solution and T-6A Simulation Based Trainers programs, Onsite/Offsite and logistics support provided to the USAF for the URT program and continued support for the UK Military Flight Training System program. In addition, SimiGon's capabilities to identify new markets and their requirements for cost effective personal training systems was further demonstrated during the Period, as the Company was able to secure new business and expand product capabilities. Advanced proven technology together with successful deliveries have led SimiGon to be contracted with strategic programs throughout the period which has solidified SIMbox as a major training technology platform.

SimiGon's technology supports industry demand for more realistic training and depth perception provided with XR solutions. Integrated with our Learning Management System and Virtual Instructor, trainees receive high value, self-paced training, saving end user organizations time and money.

Over the Period, the Company continued its strategic focus on its three main areas:

· Sustain the baseline - Successfully delivering Distributed Learning Solutions to our core strategic partners worldwide. SimiGon, directly and through its partners, now has training sites in North America, Europe, Middle East and in the Asia Pacific markets.

· Expand market reach - Expand the utilization of our SIMbox technology to multiple domains. This was successfully achieved by targeting several high opportunity markets such as maintenance training providers, commercial equipment operators, as well as training and research labs that utilize SIMbox as part of their research.

· Strengthen SimiGon's technology capabilities - Improve the technological capabilities of the SIMbox technology in order to enable the growth of the Company as detailed above. Beyond the expansion of our graphics engine, simulation and learning management system, we have added and delivered XR solutions to multiple clients around the globe.

The R&D efforts in the Period have focused on utilizing commercial consumer hardware to advance XR technologies for advanced training and simulation, together with continued development of the Company's simulation software development tools, high fidelity Image Generator, user monitoring and performance tracking with simulation data analytics. This comprehensive solution developed by SimiGon not only provides an immersive, high fidelity training environment, it also provides organizations the ability to see trainee(s) progression rate and areas of difficulty, enabling the curriculum to be tweaked for better training results. SIMbox technologies accelerating training are increasing the Company's opportunities and market penetration across military and civilian training markets.

Operational Review

SimiGon's core technology platform, SIMbox, and support services were developed for large simulation training programs for the Government and Commercial sectors. As the Company evolves into a training systems integrator, SimiGon remains at the forefront of designing, developing, implementing and supporting advanced simulation and training solutions to accelerate learning. Increased operational proficiency lowers safety risks and better prepares operators for real operations, whether they are flights, flight line maintenance tasks or deep sea oil rig operations. Leveraging the robust SIMbox ecosystem, SimiGon and its partners can deliver XR capable simulation-based training content across unlimited domains and across the hardware spectrum, from tablets and laptops/PCs to high fidelity training devices.

SimiGon's strategic, simulation-based training solutions offer flexible licensing models with traditional software licensing or SaaS. SimiGon's technologies and capabilities provide significant added value to multiple industries.

Markets

Aerospace and defense related industry

SimiGon's historical core market is aerospace and defense, particularly military aviation, where the Company continues to illustrate its position as a preferred technology supplier to the world's largest military training programs.

The Company's track record of delivering on time and within budget has led to winning multiple military-related contracts around the world, as well as serving to further entrench the Company with existing customers into new programs.

Civilian and Commercial vertical markets

SimiGon's significant capabilities, proven in the defense sector, are being leveraged to pursue new civilian training contracts. SimiGon's civilian training market opportunities range from maintenance, safety, energy and other industrial operations skills. The Company's efforts to grow vertical Government and Civilian training are proceeding. The Company recognizes the growth potential in XR training solutions and is developing and marketing relevant solutions to support this fundamental shift in the training world.

The global smart education and learning market size is expected to reach $423.2 billion by 2025 at a 15.2% CAGR, offering extensive expansion opportunities for SimiGon. The enterprise XR training market is expected to reach $393 billion by 2025 with a CAGR of 69.4% between 2019-2025.

Millennials and Generation Z users learning experience is transforming the training industry as students are exposed to digital devices from a young age. Adaptive learning, simulation-based learning, blended learning, and collaborative learning, all part of SimiGon products, have subsequently evolved to offer users enhanced learning methodologies and experiences.

The simulation-based learning segment is anticipated to grow at a fast pace, enabling professional organizations and educational institutions to virtually experience real world environments for trainees to practice, navigate, explore, and obtain more information through a virtual medium before they start working on real-life tasks. Growing awareness among people and rising popularity of smart education are encouraging solution providers to invest in research and development for creating more reliable, better, and cost-effective solutions.

As an Open System Architecture ("OSA") software framework, SimiGon's ability to integrate with new technologies makes its viable long-term training simulation software fully capable of leveraging the immersive training needs of the XR civilian markets. SimiGon software offers an advanced solution to organizations seeking to teach visual and interactive problem solving in far ranging markets such as civilian aviation, technician training, language training, customer service training and corporate leadership. The Company's technology, experience and personnel, place it in a unique position to take advantage of the cultural shifts democratizing learning and training to reach the wider consumer market.

Marketing

SimiGon's marketing mix includes digital and print advertising, social media and booths at four industry symposiums, including the ITEC in Europe, IITSEC, Air Warfare Symposium and TSIS in the US, as well as participation in smaller industry demos for select end users.

General

The Company continues to further develop its disruptive, baseline, commercial off-the-shelf ("COTS") product with additional top layer application content and capabilities to reach more end users and vertical markets.

Targeted verticals such as commercial aviation maintenance training, security training, language training and vocational training have common requirements to the defense-related industries the Company continues to target. Specifically, they are highly regulated, require complex and specialized skill training and have zero tolerance for error. SimiGon is seeking to increase market share and broaden the end user applications for its base line SIMbox software platform in new domains.

Business Model

The Company's strategy, is to focus on long-term, high value, stable SaaS license contracts and services that provide better revenue and profit visibility as a result of distributing over the Period in which they are provided rather than lumpy license sales.

With SaaS-based contracts, the recurring maintenance and support stream is already included in the contract terms. In addition, the Company maintains flexibility with its traditional perpetual license fee model where the Company is paid for software license and support, as well as providing turnkey solutions for customers and partners as a Prime contractor or Sub-contractor.

Growth Strategy

The Company is focused on organic growth with its existing customer base, offering continuous product developments and services; leveraging its experience and IP developed from existing contracts as a Prime Contractor and Subcontractor to win new business and capture sales in established segments; and expanding its core technology's applicability for new market domains, directly and indirectly.

SimiGon's highly scalable, COTS technology training management system makes it an ideal solution to address new training domains with little customization required. New projects and markets continue to utilize the product infrastructure and developer tools to create the new application content; once developed, they are leveraged to target the wider market.

Long term contracts

The Company maintained its solid portfolio of long term partnerships:

The Company has been awarded a $1.8 million contract from a large international defense electronics company ("Defense Company") to design, develop and implement a C-130 virtual maintenance training solution. The Contract for the C-130 training system is a new product complementing SimiGon's current range of VMT solutions, including the F-16 training system which is already used by the IAF. This Contract, along with other ground based training systems using SimiGon technologies in the IAF, including T-6A Virtual Reality systems and the M-346 Advanced Jet Trainer, further solidifies SimiGon technologies as the IAF's primary training technology platform for aircrew academy members. The Contract's period of performance (excluding 12 months warranty and support) is approximately eighteen (18) months.

The Company has been awarded with a BPA from the USAF for the supply of Virtual and Mixed Reality Systems. The BPA, has a contract ceiling of $6 million over a two-year period. This allows the U.S. Government to rapidly order Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) solutions. SimiGon was one of four contractors awarded.

SimiGon continues its successful support for UKMFTS as a technology and services provider to Lockheed Martin. The Company continues to deliver under this long term contract, now in its ninth year of support, exceeding partner and end user expectations of SimiGon's technologies and performance.

Ongoing USAF contracts for the continued maintenance and support including onsite hardware and software support for the sixteen SIMbox-based T-6A Level 5 FTDs.

Check-6 Inc., one of the leading providers of training solutions to the energy and mining industries, is another example of SimiGon's ability to help companies achieve new growth. Throughout this contract, SimiGon has successfully executed on its agreed deliverables. This relationship continues to yield long term business prospects.

The Company continues to support and has further expanded its long-term relationship with a major existing European customer that it has been supplying with software and services since 2009. SimiGon continues its successful support of the SIMbox-based T-6A Simulation Based Trainers units provided to the IAF Flight Academy.

Financial Performance

Revenue for the year ended 31 December 2019 was $4.88 million, compared to $5.03 million in 2018. 41.5% of SimiGon's revenues came from North America (2018: 29%), 58.44% from Europe, Middle East, South America and Australia (2018: 69%) and 0.06% from the Far East (2018: 2%).

During the Period, loss before tax expenses were $1.45 million (2018: loss before tax expenses of $0.78 million). The key contributor to the reported operating loss is the purchase of hardware and equipment in a total of $0.6 million that was provided mainly as part of SimiGon's programs with the USAF and with IAF (F16 Maintenance Trainer and IAF F16 T6A) and the continued investment in research and development expenses. The Company continues to maintain a strong balance sheet with liquid cash balances of $6.04 million as at 31 December 2019.

Gross profit for the year ended 31 December 2019 was $3.09 million, as compared to $4.06 million for the year ended 31 December 2018. Accordingly, gross margins decrease to 63% for the year ended 31 December 2019 as compared to 81% for the year ended 31 December 2018. The increase in the cost of sales during the Period was mainly as a result of the purchase of hardware and equipment provided as part of SimiGon's programs with the USAF and IAF.

Total operating expenses for the year ended 31 December 2019 decreased by 6% to $4.53 million as compared to $4.82 million for the year ended 31 December 2018. R&D expenses for year ended 31 December 2019 decreased by 8% to $2.18 million as compared to $2.34 million for the year ended 31 December 2018. Without considering the impact of the adoption of IFRS 16 on the financial reports for year 2019, the decrease in the R&D expenses was mainly due to reductions in salary expenses. Marketing expenses for the year ended 31 December 2019 increased by 16% to $1.19 million as compared to $1.02 million for the year ended 31 December 2018 mainly due to salary expenses. General and administration expenses for the year ended 31 December 2019 decreased by 20% to $1.17 million as compared to $1.46 million the year ended 31 December 2018 mainly due to a provision for doubtful debts recorded in year 2018 of $0.45 million.

Operating loss for the year ended 31 December 2019 was $1.45 million, as compared to $0.76 million for the year ended 31 December 2018. 

The Company has recorded a non cash tax expense of $0.22 million for the year ended 31 December 2018 mainly as a result of a deferred tax asset in relation to the expected utilization of carry forward losses against expected income in future years.

As a consequence of the factors above, the net loss for the fiscal year was $1.45 million (2018: net loss of $1.01 million).

Net basic and diluted loss per share was $0.03 for the year ended 31 December 2019 as compared to net basic and diluted loss per share of $0.02 for the year ended 31 December 2018.

As at 31 December 2019 the Company had cash and cash equivalents of $6.04 million as compared to $6.00 million as at 31 December 2018, with trade receivables net of $1.41 million, out of which, a total of $0.76 million has been collected since the year end.

Outlook

SimiGon's outlook is positive primarily due to its current technologies, R&D roadmap and the overwhelming need to provide millennials and Generation Z with XR capable, immersive training solutions. Government and Civilian requirements for proficient operators in multiple domains of zero risk tolerance such as aviation and energy, is a challenge the Company looks forward to capturing, and realizing the growth foreseen by investors. The latest coronavirus (COVID-19) threatens to be a disruptor to companies, supply chains and the world economy for at least the first half of 2020. The overall impact of the virus on the Company's business is hard to assess at the moment. At the same time, the Company remains agile and able to scale rapidly to support new business and deliver its vision and business strategy.

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*) Net of 535,571 shares held in treasury.

**) Represents an amount lower than $ 1 thousand.