Last checked at 11 Aug 2014 07:00
11 August 2014
Digital Barriers plc
("Digital Barriers")
Business Update
The Board of Digital Barriers plc (the "Group"), the specialist provider of advanced surveillance technologies to the security and defence sectors today provides a business update, with particular reference to its progress in West Africa and the current Ebola outbreak.
In May this year, the Board announced its first significant contract win in West Africa. This contract took the form of a £300,000 deployment of its wide area surveillance solution within a high-security government location, part of a broader programme for which the customer has approved additional deployments expected to be valued at a further £1.2 million which were in progress. The Group has also engaged heavily in ongoing dialogue with government customers in the same region around oil and gas, border protection and critical infrastructure programmes, with a strong expectation of material projects this financial year for which initial contract discussions were already underway.
As a consequence of the Ebola outbreak, and as a necessary precaution to guarantee staff welfare, the Group has avoided travel by sales and technical pre-sales staff to the region during the last month whilst keeping the situation under constant review. Following the recent intensification of the situation, the Group does not now expect staff travel to the region to recommence in the near term.
Given the Group was negotiating contracts in West Africa for the deployment of further wide area surveillance solutions with an expected value in excess of £6 million, this will have a clear impact on the Group's expected revenues from the region this financial year, particularly in this first half.
Although it now appears unlikely that these contracts can still be finalized and delivered this financial year with inevitable consequences for Group financial performance, the Board remains confident that the contracts in question will ultimately be fulfilled.
Further the strong ongoing sales traction which the Group is also experiencing in other geographies, including the United States and Asia Pacific, provides significant confidence that some of the shortfall will be recovered from other customers. For example, the Group recently secured separate contracts for its ThruVision standoff people screening solution from a major United States police department and for the security of an Asia-Pacific leadership summit, each valued at more than £250,000. The Group also continues to see very strong interest for its Integrated Surveillance Platform for major government security programmes and for its TVI video platform into defence and law enforcement agencies around the world and is actively engaged in contract negotiations in several cases.
Tom Black, Executive Chairman of Digital Barriers commented:
"Digital Barriers has developed some very strong and important relationships with people within West Africa. Our first thoughts are with friends and associates there with the hope that this health crisis can be brought quickly under control.
We have invested significant time and effort in developing a strategic sales pipeline in the fast growing economies of West Africa and our hope and expectation is that although we will see inevitable delays, we can work with our local partners to ensure these delays are kept to a minimum. In the interim we are already seeing very significant sales traction with customers across other target regions and expect positive contract news throughout the year."
For further information, please contact:
Digital Barriers plc | Tel: 020 7940 4740 |
Tom Black, Chairman | |
Sharon Cooper, Finance Director | |
Investec Investment Banking | Tel: 020 7597 5970 |
Andrew Pinder/ Dominic Emery | |
FTI Consulting | Tel: 020 3727 1000 |
Edward Bridges/ Matt Dixon/ Elodie Castagna | |
About Digital Barriers
Digital Barriers provides advanced surveillance technologies to the international homeland security and defence markets, specialising in 'edge-intelligent' solutions that are designed for remote, hostile or complex operating environments. We work with governments, multinational corporations and system integrators in the defence, law enforcement, critical infrastructure, transportation and natural resources sectors. Our surveillance technologies have been successfully proven on some of the most demanding operational and environmental deployments around the world.
www.digitalbarriers.com