Tribal Grp. Regulatory News (TRB)

16 November 2021

Tribal Group plc

("Tribal" or "the Group")

Business Update

Continued progress with Cloud strategy, including Cloud Contract Win with UCL, the acquisition of a Timetabling platform and a new European partner

Change of accounting treatment of capitalised costs for an internal programme

Tribal (AIM: TRB), a leading provider of software and services to the international education market, is pleased to announce: a cloud contract win; an acquisition of a cloud-based timetabling platform; expanding of the Company's product portfolio; and a new co-selling agreement to support Tribal's sales efforts in Continental Europe.

University College London signs £3m Cloud contract

Long-standing SITS:Vision Student Information System customer, University College London (UCL), one of the largest and most prestigious universities in the UK, has agreed a multi-year contract to transition SITS to the Tribal:Cloud, a fully-managed SaaS service by Tribal in the public cloud. The 5-year contract has a total value of £3 million, incorporating approximately £500k of incremental Annual Recurring Revenue, building on the £49.6m of total Tribal ARR announced at the half year.

Acquisition of Timetabling platform

In line with the Company's stated growth strategy, which seeks to combine organic growth and product development with M&A, the Company is delighted to announce the acquisition of Eveoh's "My Timetable", a leading platform for timetable publication and integration generating £0.3m ARR, for a maximum consideration in the region of £0.7m over two years. The platform allows institutions to publish personalised student and staff timetables, via the web or their mobile device and is currently in use at more than forty institutions in Europe and the UK. 

The platform will be integrated with the recently acquired Semestry timetabling and scheduling solutions and will be applicable across Tribal's extensive customer base, as universities seek to increase engagement with their students and offer more personalised experiences.  

Professional services partnership

The Group has entered into a partnership agreement with Dutch-based OMIX Group1 to support the sales of Semestry modules into Europe, providing functional consulting, expertise and training to our European Semestry customers. OMIX is a leading provider of consulting to education institutions in the Netherlands and other European countries. The OMIX Scheduling Academy has licensed and will deploy the Semestry's TermTime, ExamTime and MyTimetable solutions to support the professional development of Schedulers in the Academy.

[1] Full legal name: Omix Onderwijsplanners B.V. (55533434)

Accounting treatment of capitalised costs for an internal programme

Following a review of the clarification from the IFRS Interpretations Committee regarding configuration and customisation costs in Cloud Computing Arrangements (Software as a Service, "SaaS") under IAS 38, Tribal has identified a change in treatment of capitalised costs.

Our internal transformation programme, known as Veritas, predominately uses SaaS arrangements and third party implementation partners to improve our systems and processes. Costs had been previously capitalised during 2021, £0.8m as at end June 2021 and will now be expensed through the income statement with a full year impact of c£1.4m in 2021 and c£1.0m in 2022. As the costs are material and 'one-off' in nature, all Veritas Programme costs expensed through the Income Statement in both 2021 and 2022 will be disclosed as 'Other Items' in the financial statements and therefore not included within the Group's adjusted profit figures.

Veritas will improve our profitability and ability to scale for future planned growth, by driving simplifications, standardisation, and optimisation across our value chain.

The Board is confident in the Group's delivery of adjusted operating profits for the year, in line with the Board's expectations, and in the long-term growth opportunity for Tribal.

Mark Pickett, Tribal's CEO, commented: "We continue to make excellent progress against our cloud strategy, building out our product roadmap through the acquisition of a timetabling cloud module, an important area of student engagement, transitioning one of our long-standing customers, UCL, onto our managed cloud service and Edge platform, increasing our levels of recurring revenue, and expanding our sales and marketing capabilities in the European market through a partnership with OMIX. Through the expansion of our Edge platform, we are positioning ourselves at the forefront of the evolution in our industry and continue to be excited about our growing opportunity and capabilities."

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About Tribal Group plc

Tribal Group plc is a pioneering world-leader of education software and services. Its portfolio includes Student Information Systems; a broad range of education services covering quality assurance, peer review, benchmarking and improvement; and student surveys that provide the leading global benchmarks for student experience. Working with Higher Education, Further and Tertiary Education, schools, Government and State bodies, training providers and employers, in over 55 countries; Tribal Group's mission is to empower the world of education with products and services that underpin student success.