15 Aug 2016 14:00
15 August 2016
BOXHILL TECHNOLOGIES PLC
("Boxhill", the "Group" or the "Company")
Company Half Year Update
Company Update
The board of directors of Boxhill (the "Board") is pleased to report first half sales are in line with its expectations, increasing by 13% to £1.125 million (1 Feb 15 to 31 July 15 £0.993 million) delivering a gross profit of £828,000 (1 Feb 15 to 31 July 15 £780,411) and an operating profit of £301,600 (1 Feb 2015 to 31 July 2015 £323,000). These figures are unaudited and extracted from the management accounts. The Board expects to announce the full accounts for the 6 months to 31 July 2016 in September.
Lord Razzall, executive chairman stated, "The first half performance is encouraging and comes at a time when the company is only just starting to realise the benefits of the acquisition of Emexpay and Freepaymaster. As we continue to invest in staff and technology we have seen an increase in overhead to £527,000 (1 Feb 2015 to 31 July 15 £457,000), however the Board has managed to minimise the impact on the operating profit, and the business is operationally geared to expand sales on the current level of overhead.
Emexpay has bought about cost savings and an ability to review and renegotiate terms with our acquiring banking network, thus improving gross margins and opening up new opportunities in the credit card processing business."
Working with our New York based partners CFP International, Freepaymaster is now part of the SWIFT network and will soon be able to issue virtual individual IBAN (international bank account numbers) to existing and new customers - ensuring that sending and receiving payments is as smooth as possible. Freepaymaster is also piloting a number of innovative applications including enhanced services for existing Emexpay credit card merchants, in particular with speeding up settlement cycles; encouraging users to engage in peer to peer payments thus creating an alternative payment channel within our own financial ecosystem, in most cases avoiding credit card processing charges altogether. We are continuing to develop the platform with mobile devices as the key focus area and adding technologies which support users who want secure payment services available on their mobile devices.
In the lottery division, Prize Provision Services has acquired new clients while continuing to update the underlying technology supporting the Weather Lottery. The bulk of the back office technology updates have now been completed allowing the company to begin rolling out improvements across the business. In Q4 2016 the company will introduce direct bank payment to replace traditional cheque payments and is due to deliver client administration upgrades in addition to a new customer facing website.
Further updates will be made by the Company as appropriate.
For further information, contact:
Boxhill Technologies PLC 020 7493 9644
Tim Razzall, Executive Chairman
Website www.boxhillplc.com
Allenby Capital Limited (Nomad & Broker)
John Depasquale/Nick Harriss/ Richard Short 020 3328 5656