Tribal Grp. Regulatory News (TRB)

28th January 2020

Tribal Group plc

("Tribal" or "the Group")

Business Update

Tribal (AIM: TRB), a leading provider of software and services to the international education market, today announces the following trading update in respect of its financial year ended 31 December 2019.

Trading

Good progress has been made in the period with Tribal's continued focus on operational efficiencies leading to an Adjusted EBITDA1 performance marginally higher than the Board's expectations. Group revenue is slightly lower than expected, primarily due to a reduction in the number of new Student Information System opportunities coming to market in the UK and Australia, the increasing move to subscription sales from perpetual licenses in Further Education and Work-Based Learning, and the timing of revenue recognition under IFRS15.

Education Services benefited from significant new contracts in the UK and the Middle East, however the revenues from the Middle East contract will be largely recognised in 2020.

Annual recurring revenue (ARR) has grown again aided by the acquisition of Crimson Consultants (now Tribal Dynamics) in May 2019 and the additional subscription sales.

The Group has a strong balance sheet with net cash at 31 December 2019 ahead of the Board's expectations at £16.5m (2018: £20.0m) following a positive collection performance in the final quarter. During the period Tribal invested £6m in the acquisition of Crimson Consultants and a further £6m in the development of the Tribal Edge platform.

Good progress has been made in the development of Tribal Edge, our cloud enabled single platform to provide common services for multi-tenanted SaaS applications, and our first full module is due for release in Australia imminently.

Platform dispute

The Group has now reached a non-binding, in principle agreement to settle the dispute with a platform provider for past royalties and a new 10 year agreement for royalties due on future sales and renewals. The Group expects to pay in the order of £9m to settle all historic liabilities, including related legal fees, and will fully provide for these costs in 2019.

The Group expects to announce its full year results on 18thMarch 2020.

Mark Pickett, Chief Executive Officer of Tribal, commented:

"I'm pleased to report a good Adjusted EBITDA, ARR and cash performance for the period, ahead of our expectations, despite some softness in our end markets. The conclusion of the platform dispute is very welcome.

The Tribal Edge platform has been a key focus during the year, and I am looking forward to the launch of our first module this month. There is clear demand for cloud-based solutions within our key markets, and Tribal Edge provides native cloud based next generation solutions, which positions Tribal to benefit from this trend.

The Board remains confident in the outlook for the year ahead."

1 Adjusted EBITDA is in respect of continuing operations excluding restructuring costs, share based payments and provision for the platform dispute settlement

END

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.

This Statement has been prepared for and is addressed only to our shareholders as a whole and should not be relied on by any other party or for any other purpose. Tribal, its directors, employees, agents or advisers do not accept or assume responsibility to any other person to whom this Statement is shown or into whose hands it may come and any such responsibility or liability is expressly disclaimed. This Statement may contain forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statement has been made by the directors in good faith based on the information available to them up to the time of approval of this Statement and should be treated with caution due to the inherent uncertainties, including both economic and business risk factors, underlying such forward-looking information. To the extent that this Statement contains any statement dealing with any time after the date of its preparation, such statement is merely predictive and speculative as it relates to events and circumstances which are yet to occur and therefore the facts stated and views expressed may change. Tribal undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements.