Touchstar Plc Regulatory News (TST)

12 February 2019

Touchstar plc

(the "Company", "Touchstar" or the "Group")

Full Year Trading Update and Group Operational Review

Touchstar (AIM: TST), a company specialising in real time data capture and mobile computing solutions for the retail, logistics and transportation sector, today announces a trading update for the year ended 31 December 2018 and that it is undertaking an operational review of the Group's businesses.

Trading Update

The board is pleased to announce the losses for the year before tax and after research and development tax credits for the year ended 31 December 2018 will be considerably better than market expectations. Although turnover will be somewhat lower than expectations, this will be more than compensated by achievement of higher margins, reflective of the move to more software-based sales and lower costs.

The results for the year overall benefitted from a strong trading in the Transportation sector as new clients were secured and existing clients began to upgrade to the new generation of Touchstar products and services. After a slow first half, Access Control had a substantially better second half driven by the introduction of new product lines to their customers. Touchstar On Board Retail's performance was below the desired levels as customers delayed implementations. Logistics traded broadly as expected.

A positive dynamic was cash generation, this enabled the group to end the financial year with a healthy net cash position.

Group Operational Review

The Board is undertaking a review of the structure and operations of the Group's businesses. The objective is to see how the Group structure can be simplified to ensure that focus is upon sectors where Touchstar has a strong market position, deep customer relationships, demonstrable growth potential and the prospect of achieving an adequate return on investment.

The review is expected to be completed and communicated to shareholders on or before the announcement of the 2018 full year financial results in the middle of April.

Outlook 2019

In line with market expectations, the Board expects to see significant improvement in the Group's performance in 2019 compared to 2018 despite the Group operating in an environment of raised levels of political and economic uncertainty which is likely to persist throughout 2019.

This announcement includes inside information as defined in Article 7 of the Market Abuse Regulation No. 596/2014 and is disclosed in accordance with the Company's obligations under Article 17 of those Regulations. 

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