THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONTAINS INSIDE INFORMATION AS STIPULATED UNDER THE UK VERSION OF THE MARKET ABUSE REGULATION NO 596/2014 WHICH IS PART OF ENGLISH LAW BY VIRTUE OF THE EUROPEAN (WITHDRAWAL) ACT 2018, AS AMENDED.  ON PUBLICATION OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT VIA A REGULATORY INFORMATION SERVICE, THIS INFORMATION IS CONSIDERED TO BE IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.

 

27 July 2023

 

4GLOBAL PLC

 

("4GLOBAL" or the "Company")

 

Final Results

 

4GLOBAL, a UK-based data, services and software company focused on major sporting events and the promotion and measurement of physical activity, is pleased to announce its audited final results for the year ended 31 March 2023.

 

Headline results for the year to 31 March 2023

 

	Audited	Audited	Change
	2023	2022
	£'000	£'000
Revenue	5,586	3,640	+53%
Gross profit	4,136	2,616	+58%
Adjusted profit before taxation	1,230	573	+115%
Statutory profit / (loss) before tax	519	(1,889)
Earnings per share Net cash	2.4p 1,138	(7.1)p 3,051

Financial highlights

•	Revenue increased to £5.6m (2022: £3.6m) up 53%
•	Consultancy services revenue £2.3m and data (ARR) revenue £3.3m, up 114%
• •	Significant revenue (£2.5m) carried over into new financial year, providing good forward visibility  Significantly improved operating profit at £1.2m (2022: £573k) up 115% Profit before tax of £520k against a loss for the prior year of £1.9m
•	Earnings per share of 2.4p compared to a loss of (7.1)p in 2022

 

 

Post period highlights

 

•

Strategic partnership to exploit a multi-million US dollar opportunity with Jonas Fitness Inc, part of Jonas Software, a worldwide Constellation Software company

•     •

Strategic partnership agreement for a multi-million-pound opportunity with the fitness equipment and digital health provider Technogym to work with their existing and mutual clients to enhance their data insight solutions Continued strong financial performance in first quarter of new financial year, with confidence in continued strong financial performance. The Company remains focused on continuing to grow its data and insight products revenue, due to revenue visibility and higher margin profile.

 

 

Eloy Mazon, Chief Executive Officer of 4GLOBAL commented:

"We completed our first full year as an AIM quoted company and are in a strong financial position - profitable and with a sound balance sheet - the business has an excellent foundation on which to build in the current financial year and the future.

 

"Demand for our data and insight products continues to grow.  The many significant challenges faced in our sector due to the uncertain global economic outlook, will, we believe, drive our customers to seek ever more business-critical insight and this is the very strong message we are getting from our customers.

 

"We are encouraged by the prospects for the rest of the financial year and beyond as we seek to increase our penetration in the European and North American markets and develop new revenue streams associated with our data."

 

For further information please contact:

4GLOBAL Eloy Mazon (CEO)	c/o IFC Advisory
Spark Advisory Partners - Nominated Adviser Neil Baldwin	0203 368 3554
Canaccord Genuity Limited - Broker Bobbie Hilliam	020 7523 8000
IFC Advisory Graham Herring / Zach Cohen	0203 934 6630

 

A copy of these results is available on the Company's website www.4global.com. In addition, the Report & Accounts will be available on the Company's website and sent to shareholders by, at which point a further notification will be made.

 

CHAIRMAN'S STATEMENT

 

I am very pleased to announce our results for the year ended 31 March 2023. We have built on the foundations of the previous year and have established deep long-term partnerships with key clients that have resulted in the robust performance being announced today. Clients are seeing the benefits of our data and the provision of insights that our data provides which allows them to make, and continue to make, insightful business decisions.

 

Results

 

The financial results for the year ended 31 March 2023 reflect the hard work by Eloy Mazon (CEO) and his team. Revenue for the year ended 31 March 2023 was £5.6m, up 53% on the previous year. As per our strategy, we continue to grow our data products and platforms and increasingly our other services rely on our unique data sets as part of the offering, we will identify our revenues as being generated from our unique data set. We have shown in our segmental analysis the split between Consultancy and Data. Moving forward, we will migrate our clients to new contracts that will reflect the fact that we supply services in a data rich environment. The result of which will be higher ARR and forward visibility.

 

Our alternative reporting results for the year ended 31 March 2023 was an adjusted earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation of £1.23m (2022: £0.573m) an increase of 115%.

 

Board and People

 

I would like to thank my fellow Board members for their continued support and contribution to the Group. I would also like to thank Roger Taylor who stepped down from the Board in October 2022 after assisting in guiding us through the IPO process and wish him well for the future.

 

I must thank our colleagues within the business for their continued hard work and professionalism and their vital support in delivering these results. We are a dynamic business and our colleagues have produced exceptional work for and on behalf of clients.

 

Annual General Meeting

 

The Annual General Meeting will be held on 27 September 2023 at the Company's offices, 5th Floor, Building 7 Chiswick Park, 566 Chiswick High Road, Chiswick, London, W4 5YG.

 

Outlook

 

We have established partnerships with our client base that are deep rooted and will continue to supply data products and platforms that our clients use in their everyday business decision making and insights. The Board is confident about the Group's current prospects.

 

Ian James

Chairman

26 July 2023

 

 

 

CHIEF EXECUTIVE'S STATEMENT

 

In our first full year as a quoted company, we continue to build a reputation with all our stakeholders for delivering great products and platforms from our unique data set and for delivering strong financial results for the business.

 

Our revenue for the financial year ended 31 March 2023 showed a year-on-year growth of 53% up from £3.6m to £5.6m. We produced a statutory profit before tax of £0.5m (2022: Loss (£1.9m)) and an adjusted EBTIDA of £1.23m against £0.573 m for the previous year, a 115% increase.

 

This achievement was made possible thanks to the enormous efforts of everyone at 4GLOBAL over the years during which we have established an incredible reputation in our sector worldwide and developed a unique data set and insight products that are recognised as having transformed our customers businesses.

 

A key priority for us over the years has been to ensure that 4GLOBAL was built on a robust foundation with solid business principles around revenue, profitability and sustainable growth. This has allowed us to successfully navigate the turbulent macro-economic climate of the past year, continuing to deliver strong growth and a solid financial position.

 

Our growth strategy is underpinned by four pillars; international expansion, "land & expand" clients, acquisition strategy and data commercialisation. The reporting year to 31 March 2023 was the second year in our five-year strategic cycle and we continually review and measure the performance we have made against each of our strategic pillars.

 

•	International expansion - we have seen strong demand from international markets especially the middle east where our partnership model is developing business opportunities. Our initial expansion into the North American and European markets is going well and we have signed commercial partnerships with key players in these markets such as Jonas, Technogym and IHRSA from which we will develop revenue generating opportunities in the near future.
•	"Land and expand" clients - we continue to land new clients, 17.6% of revenue was generated from new client relationships in the financial year. We were also able to expand relationships with existing clients. The current need for data and insight to navigate complex strategic, operational and investment challenges has generated strong demand for our data and insight products and services and this has been reflected in the recurring revenue growth compared to last year.
•	Acquisition strategy - we are constantly evaluating opportunities for acquisition. Our focus is to ensure that any company we acquire is aligned to our core business values and financial criteria of profitability, cash generation and annual recurring revenues so that they are accretive to the overall value of 4GLOBAL. Reviewing the market for potential acquisitions continues to be an opportunity for our growth strategy.
•	Data commercialisation - we have built one of the biggest and unique databases of how individuals consume sport. We believe that our strength is a data company and not a software company, therefore we believe in providing our customers with the option of using our data - under the same data user agreements signed with the data controllers - irrespective of the software platform they might want to use to draw the unique insights that only our data provides. This allows us to open up new customer types who have other software products embedded in their organisation but that without our data would not deliver the sort of insights we can provide.

 

Overall, excellent progress has been made in executing our strategy and we are pleased with the results it is generating.

 

During the financial year we released updated editions of CitiHub 2.0; Social Value Calculator ("SVC") 3.0; SVC Canada 1.0; Demand Modelling Tool 1.0 and European DataHub 1.0.

 

CitiHub integrates physical activity and participation programmes with additional data to provide insight and activity trends and assists in the planning of interventions to address physical inactivity and related health issues.

 

SVC was designed to give leisure operators a way of measuring and providing evidence for the Social Value created from investment in sport and physical activity.

 

Our Demand Modelling Tool provides a clear set of demand projections in terms of unique users and weekly participation for a range of facility types, as well as benchmarking this against sector averages, understanding membership numbers and how much social value that could be generated.

 

The tool allows users to model a range of investment scenarios and identify the optimal facility mix should investment be made, whether this is through the development of new sites or redevelopment at existing facilities.

This gives the ability to measure the potential impact and outputs can be used to drive the commercial model for investment into a site.

 

We are taking our DataHub into Europe where we have established a partnership with the trade association, EuropeActive, with the intention of developing a central database for physical activity participation data across Europe.

 

Our data asset grew significantly in this period, currently we have 3.5 billion data points and processing significant amounts of data on a daily basis; in England alone we are processing in excess of 1million data points per day. This growth in our data assets solidifies our position in the market, increases entry barriers and allows us to provide even more valuable and unique insights.

 

By integrating data analytics capabilities, technology implementation, and strategic consulting we offer our clients end-to-end solutions. With our data asset as the foundation, our unique data-driven decision-making approach enables us to empower clients with intelligence and actionable insights aligned to their strategic objectives and business priorities, giving us a distinctive edge in the market.

 

Summary and Outlook

 

We completed our first full year as an AIM quoted company and are in a strong financial position - profitable and with a sound balance sheet - the business has an excellent foundation on which to build in the current financial year and the future.

 

Demand for our data and insight products continues to grow.  The many significant challenges faced in our sector due to the uncertain global economic outlook, will, we believe, drive our customers to seek ever more business-critical insight and this is the very strong message we are getting from our customers.

 

We are encouraged by the prospects for the rest of the financial year and beyond as we seek to increase our penetration in the European and North American markets and develop new revenue streams associated with our data.

 

As predicted, the line between service and technology revenue is becoming harder to differentiate as the majority of our relationships with customers are annual recurring or repeatable ("ARR") type of relationships. It is for this reason that in the financial year ending 31 March 2024 we plan to start the migration of all existing customers and new customers to this type of contracting, accelerating this way the transition that began some years ago from a service revenue business to a data and technology revenue business.

 

We believe this change in approach to our contractual relationship with our customers will better represent the nature of the business and its value, at the same time that it will drive a number of operational efficiencies.

 

I would like to thank all our staff for their efforts in 2022/23 to realise the true potential of 4GLOBAL and growth capabilities.

 

 

Eloy Mazon

Chief Executive Officer

26 July 2023

 

 

 

FINANCIAL REVIEW

 

The Group has shown significant growth in the last financial year with revenues and profits up year on year. The Group uses a number of key indicators to monitor the Group's performance. The statutory results for the year ended 31 March 2023 with the comparatives for the previous year are presented in the following table. Together with a reconciliation to the presentation of the Headline Results.

 

To arrive at a Headline profit before tax the Directors feel it appropriate to make the financial numbers comparable at earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, share based payment expense and exceptional items.

 

At the time of the IPO a new share option scheme was implemented: a total of 1,755,072 options were issued at 91p and 550,800 options were issued at 35.6p. A net charge of £338,455 (2022: £169,550) has been taken to the share-based payment reserve on the balance sheet. 275,400 options that were issued at 35.6p lapsed during the year.

 

Reconciliation of statutory to Headline profit before taxation:

 

		Year ended 31 March 2023		Year ended 31 March 2022
		£		£
Statutory profit/(loss) before taxation		496,921		(1,888,693)
Separately disclosed items:
Depreciation and amortisation		372,717		196,756
Share based payment expense		338,455		169,550
Exceptional items		-		2,071,781
Finance cost (net)		22,271		23,905
Headline profit before taxation		1,230,364		573,299

 

Group revenue, for the year ended 31 March 2023, has increased by 53% to £5.6m from £3.6m. Gross profit has increased from £2.6m to £4.1m, up 58%.

 

The Group analyses revenue into two streams of consultancy and Data revenues. Consultancy revenues constitute services provided to clients for major sporting events and Data revenues is made of two elements; one is fees from setting up a client on a product platform, Project Set Up ("PSU") fees. The second is a licence fee for the use of the platform and any advice fees for analysis requested by the client. In the future, as our consultancy services increasingly rely on the data and data platforms, we will migrate our consultancy clients to contracts that identify revenues as being derived from data engagement. Therefore, the directors expect the majority of our future revenue to be recurring in nature as they are derived from our data set and platforms. Where there is a pure consultancy service we will continue to identify that revenue separately.

 

	Analysis of revenue by category			Year ended 31 March 2023			Year ended 31 March 2022
				£	%		£	%
	Consultancy			2,264,844	40%		2,087,249	57%
	Data platforms			3,320,903	60%		1,552,681	43%
				5,585,747			3,639,930

 

Revenues increased by 53% from £3.6m to £5.6m. The mix of revenue was weighted to the use of data and data dashboards we sell on our platforms. The growth in data revenue reflects execution of the Company's strategy to focus on higher margin, recurring revenue. 

 

During the current financial year no costs were identified as exceptional items. The table below discloses the exceptional items incurred in the year ended 31 March 2022 and included:

 

				Year ended 31 March 2023		Year ended 31 March 2022
				£		£
	IPO costs					874,650
	Cash settlement of historic option contracts			-		1,114,080
	Legal settlement of contract dispute			-		70,000
	Pension contributions for prior years			-		13,051
	Total exceptional items			-		2,071,781

 

Exceptional items includes the IPO costs incurred at the time of the Group's IPO on 7 December 2021 and shown in the financial year ended 31 March 2022 £0.9m.

 

The Group had issued share options to individuals during 2020. The options represented 38% of the then issued share capital of 4GLOBAL Consulting Ltd and were to reward these individuals for the work and development of that company that they had made over previous years. The potential overhang and dilutive effect of these options on the issued share capital, after taking advice, was seen as detrimental to the company's prospects of completing a successful IPO. The individuals agreed to waive their options for a cash settlement of £1.0m in addition a provision was made for employers' National Insurance contributions.

 

The directors had identified two amounts as exceptional because of their nature and relating to events in previous periods. One was a legal dispute with a client which was settled post the year end and the other was a provision for adjustments to pension contribution that have an impact on the previous year's results. This has affected the opening reserves for the 1 April 2020 and a charge being made in the accounts for the year ended 31 March 2022 and a charge in the year ended 31 March 2021. The total provision for the three years is £41,509. A provision of £13,052 has been made in this current reporting year and prior year adjustment of £12,272 made in the year ended 31 March 2021. The opening reserves for the year ended 31 March 2021 have been adjusted by the prior adjustment by £16,184.

 

The Headline Adjusted Profit from Operations is £1.2 m (2022: £0.6 m), an increase of 115%.

 

Tax

 

The Group has historic losses which have been calculated and offset against any potential charge for corporation tax. The Group, also, benefits from research and development expenditure for which the Group can claim enhanced relief of 230% of the expenditure incurred.

 

Earnings per share

 

The statutory earnings per share for the year ended 31 March 2023 was 2.4 pence (2022: loss per share of 7.1 pence), and a diluted profit per share of 2.2 pence, as the Group made a loss in the previous year there was no dilution (2022: 7.1 pence).

 

Cash Flow

 

The Group utilised £1.9m (2022: £1.1m) from operations in the year. The utilisation for the year ended 31 March 2023 is a factor of the increased working capital within both accounts receivable and contract assets. These, over time, should be converted into cash. The utilisation in the year ended 31 March 2022 was due to the settlement of exceptional items which included IPO costs of £0.9m and the cash settlement of share options £1.1m.

 

As at 31 March 2023 the Group held cash and cash equivalents of £1.1m (2022: £3.1m).

 

Statement of financial position

 

The Group's statement of financial position shows net assets totalled £4.5m (2022: £3.5m). Most of the statement of financial position is made up of liquid assets of trade and other receivables and cash and cash equivalents. Working capital was £3.8m (2022: £3.1m). Our trade and other receivables increased from £1.8m to £4.2m. This increase is due to the second half year performance in revenues where we generated £4.2m in revenues in the second six months of the year ended 31 March 2023 which represented 75% of the annual turnover. The trade and other receivables have increased from £0.7m to £1.4m and contract assets increased from £0.5m to £2.1m. Since year end we have collected £0.9m.

 

The total gross assets of the Group increased from £5.2m to £6.3m reflecting the positive performance for the year ended 31 March 2023.

 

The strategic report on was approved by the Board of Directors on 26 July 2023 and was signed on its behalf by:

 

Keith Sadler

Chief Financial Officer

26 July 2023

 

 

 

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME

For the year ended 31 March 2023

				Note			Year ended 31 March 2023		Year ended 31 March 2022
							£		£
Revenue				6			5,585,747		3,639,930
Cost of sales							(1,449,008)		(1,024,175)
Gross profit							4,136,739		2,615,755
Administrative expenses							(2,919,874)		(2,043,103)
Other operating income				7			14,000		647
Analysed as:
Adjusted profit from operations1							1,230,365		573,299
Depreciation and amortisation							(372,717)		(196,756)
Share based payment expense							(338,456)		(169,550)
Exceptional items				8			-		(2,071,782)
Profit/(loss) from operations				8			519,192		(1,864,789)
Finance income							1,772		73
Finance cost				11			(24,043)		(23,977)
Profit/(loss) before tax				3			496,921		(1,888,693)
Tax credit				12			145,133		242,581
Profit/(loss) for the year							642,054		(1,646,112)
Other comprehensive income
Exchange differences on translation of foreign operations							(3,053)		(11,058)
Other comprehensive income for the year							(3,053)		(11,058)
Total comprehensive income/(loss) for the year							639,001		(1,657,170)
Total comprehensive income/(loss) attributable to:
Owners of the Parent Company							639,001		(1,657,170)
Basic profit/(loss) per share				13			2.4p		(7.1) p
Diluted profit/(loss) per share				13			2.2p		(7.1) p

 

 

 

Note 1. Adjusted profit from operations is calculated as earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation, amortisation of intangible assets and right of use charge, any impairment costs relating to non-current assets, share based payments and exceptional items.

 

The notes form part of these financial statements.

 

 

 

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION

 

			Note			As at 31 March 2023		As at 31 March 2022
						£		£
Assets
Non-current assets
Property, plant and equipment			14			34,401		28,870
Right-of-use assets			14			595,601		382,490
Intangible assets			15			392,180		-
Deffered Tax						190,647		43,386
						1,212,829		454,746
Current assets
Trade and other receivables			16			3,977,947		1,721,096
Cash and cash equivalents			17			1,138,093		3,050,948
						5,116,040		4,772,044
Total assets						6,328,869		5,226,790

 

Equity and Liabilities
Equity
Share capital			18			263,451		263,451
Share premium			20			3,390,330		3,390,330
Merger reserve						676,310		676,310
Share option reserve			19,20			388,245		139,080
Share warrant reserve						188,266		188,266
Currency translation reserve						(35,376)		(32,323)
Retained earnings			20			(389,980)		(1,121,325)
Total equity						4,481,246		3,503,789
Non-current liabilities
Borrowings			22			108,832		158,823
Lease liability			23			194,060		-
						302,892		158,823
Current liabilities
Borrowings			22			50,000		121,814
Trade and other payables			21			1,122,746		1,088,553
Lease liability			23			371,985		353,811
Total current liabilities						1,544,731		1,564,178
Total liabilities						1,847,623		1,723,001
Total equity and liabilities						6,328,869		5,226,790

 

The notes form an integral part of the financial statements.

 

The financial statements were approved by the Board of Directors on 26 July 2023 and were signed on its behalf by

 

Keith Sadler

Chief Financial Officer

 

Registered number 13523846