Tracsis Regulatory News (TRCS)

01 March 2021

Tracsis plc

("Tracsis" or "the Group")

Launch of New Group-wide Branding and Completion of Acquisition

Tracsis, a leading provider of software, hardware, data analytics/GIS and services for the rail, traffic data and wider transport industries, is pleased to announce that it has launched new Group-wide branding. As part of this, the Group has strengthened its transport consultancy offering through the acquisition of the entire issued share capital of Flash Forward Consulting Ltd ("FFC").

New Group-wide branding

The new Tracsis branding will apply to all business units and will ensure that all parts of the Group share a consistent brand identity. This will broaden the awareness of the Group's breadth of products and services across the transport industries, whilst enhancing collaboration and integration across the business. The new branding will be fully implemented by the summer of 2021.

Consolidation of consultancy services - Tracsis Transport Consultancy

The Group is also announcing the creation of a new business unit called Tracsis Transport Consultancy, comprising our existing Rail Consulting and Passenger Analytics businesses and the newly acquired FFC. The consolidated business will deliver an expanded offering to customers across the transport industries and will champion the new Tracsis branding by offering consultancy services that cover all areas of the Group. The new business unit will employ around 35 permanent staff and will be led by Alex Warner (FFC founder and CEO) as Managing Director.

Acquisition of FFC

FFC was established in 2012 and is a London-based transport consultancy business that operates predominantly across the rail and bus sectors. It has a well-established senior level network across the transport owning groups, local and central transport governing authorities and Network Rail, and offers a range of strategic and practical technical consultancy services. In the year ended 31 March 2020, FFC generated revenue of £2.1m, normalised Profit before Tax of £0.4m, and had net assets of £1.1m.

The overall acquisition consideration for FFC is £1.5m plus a further cash payment of circa £1m reflecting the net current asset position of the business. The consideration includes the issue of 16,199 new ordinary shares in Tracsis plc to a value of £0.1m. The cash consideration will be funded out of Tracsis' existing reserves and paid over a three year period.

Chris Barnes, Chief Executive Officer, commented:

"One of my key objectives since becoming CEO has been to strengthen the Tracsis brand, broadening the transport industries' awareness of our breadth of products and services whilst enhancing collaboration and integration across the Group. Today's announcement is an important milestone on this journey."

Alex Warner, Chief Executive of Flash Forward Consulting, commented:

"I am extremely pleased that Flash Forward has joined the Tracsis Group. The two businesses have worked together for a number of years and I'm very excited to be able to utilise the experience and expertise across the Tracsis Group to provide innovative solutions to transport industry clients going forward."

An application has been made for the 16,199 new Ordinary Shares to be admitted to trading on AIM and dealings are expected to commence on 5 March.

Following the issue of the new shares, the total number of shares in issue will increase to 29,215,983. For the purposes of the Financial Conduct Authority's Disclosure and Transparency Rules ("DTRs"), the issued ordinary share capital of the Company following this allotment consists of 29,215,983 Ordinary Shares with voting rights attached (one vote per Share). There are no Shares held in treasury. This total voting rights figure may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine whether they are required to notify their interests in, or a change to their interest in, Tracsis under the DTRs.

Notes to editors: 

- Rail Technology & Services: Software and technology/product led business. Develops remote condition monitoring hardware, data acquisition software and safety and risk management software for rail infrastructure providers. Software that solves complex resource, asset optimisation and control problems for Train Operators and Smart Ticketing, Delay Repay and other retail software to improve the customer experience for rail users.

- Data, Analytics, Consultancy & Events: A largely services led business that focuses on data capture, data analytics, GIS, data insights, consultancy and event traffic management within a range of transport and pedestrian rich environments. The business provides technology/bespoke products and data that underpins large scale intelligent transport system and smart city planning and decision making.