pendil
24 Apr 2018
Re: What has gone wrong Good points, Carefully. I'm not expecting GBP to strengthen any further vs USD (which it think is the key exchange exposure), but they should have hedged.
pendil
24 Apr 2018
Buying at 105 a near 50% drop implies a major profit warning - I don't see that, even in disguise. I'm hoping I got in near the low point
Carefully Does It
24 Apr 2018
Re: What has gone wrong It looks like an over-reaction but the results are also very heavy on acquisition pipeline talk and that might have spooked some given the debt.Going from few worries about foreign currencies to it becoming a reason for real concern might also have not helped. Would have hoped currency hedges Would have helped.Might also suggest some bigger holders expect an even firmer pound or weaker euro, dollar going forward.Debt burden needs to be looked at especially as denominated in pounds vs earnings from abroad.They still don't have the factoring element in operation.
pendil
24 Apr 2018
Re: What has gone wrong The figures look quite good, particularly as I wasn't expecting too much with the costs and disruption from the acquisition. The full year figures will give a clearer picture. However, there are a couple of negative comments, both of which management do not seem to concerned about:“…although the Group has had a higher loss rate toward the end of the period than it has historically experienced which will have an impact during the second half. The Board remains confident that this is not a reflection of a long-term pattern.”“…there has been a marginally slowing rate of intake after the period end which, in itself, is quite normal.” There may be a concern that operating cash flow did not cover capitalised development costs although “underlying operating cash flow” of £5.9m (not sure exactly how that figure was arrived at) was a fair bit higher.Of course they now carry a fair amount of debt taken on to finance the Perfect Commerce purchase, so can’t afford any slip-ups.Positive factors are the up-beat statements about medium term prospects and that they are on track to deliver £5m of annualised cash savings which is quite a material amount in the context of the profits.The fall in the share price suggest a lack of confidence (perhaps because of the debt? or is it because there is a new CEO (from Perfect Commerce)?) rather than anything specific in the figures.
Ramptastic
24 Apr 2018
Re: What has gone wrong I'd guess the word "cautious" in the Chairman's statement and "loss of customers".Hopefully just a blip.Jim
Hawk Eye32
24 Apr 2018
What has gone wrong What has upset the market with these results? The board appear to be confined with future prospects they seem to have lost some clients, is that the reason for this big drop today?
gretel
05 Apr 2018
Good news re a contract expansion [link] Housing Provider, Pobl Group, Uses PROACTIS for Group-Wide Spend Management Pobl Group improves spend management processes with PROACTIS Purchase-to-Pay April 03, 2018 07:34 AM Eastern Daylight Time WETHERBY, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--PROACTIS, a global Spend Control and eProcurement solution provider, today announced that the Pobl Group has extended its use of the PROACTIS Purchase-to-Pay solution to ensure better visibility and control of corporate spend across the group. Pobl Group was created by the merger of Seren Group and Grŵp Gwalia in 2016. As a new, single group their aim is to create more affordable homes, provide more support to enable people to live the life they want and offer the highest quality care to meet the needs of an ageing population. The group currently manages over 16,000 homes and provides support for over 9,000 people. Following the merger, the group went through a period of enterprise system change, with the identification and selection of a new financial solution – OpenAccounts implemented by Orchard. They also undertook a competitive tender process for a new Purchase-to-Pay (P2P) solution. PROACTIS was successful in retaining the contract for P2P and extending its adoption to the wider group. etc"
gretel
16 Mar 2018
New contract win SEH hotels covers over 600 properties across 12 countries..."SEH United Hoteliers Group Selects Perfect Commerce, a PROACTIS Company, for Major Online Marketplace Project14/03/2018 Business WireSEH to improve purchasing strategy with new cloud-based servicesPerfect Commerce, a PROACTIS company and global Spend Control and eProcurement provider, today announced that it has been selected by SEH United Hoteliers (SEH) to deploy its cloud-based eProcurement platform in Europe.The project will enable SEH Group’s purchasing organisation to offer new online services to its hoteliers, while increasing the efficiency of its purchasing strategy. The group decided to create a marketplace to allow all hotel owners, both within and outside the group, to make more intelligent purchases with increased transparency. This emphasises the group’s loyalty to independent hoteliers.Perfect Commerce was chosen due to its experience with similar projects, international scope and ease of use. The SEH team was particularly drawn to the user-friendly and intuitive eProcurement and Catalogue Management solutions: “With Perfect Commerce, SEH will be able to guide its members towards a new stage of digital transformation by offering an online service for all purchases on a digital platform,” says David Esseryk, Chief Digital and Marketing Officer, SEH United Hoteliers.“Implementing the purchasing marketplace will better serve our hoteliers and provide a 100% online service with a single-order basket,” added Elisabeth Meulle, Head of the Group Purchasing Organisation.The new service will be available to all hotel owners from Spring 2018 and will be rapidly deployed. The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model and supplier recruitment services, exclusively offered by Perfect Commerce, are key factors in fast and efficient implementation.“We are proud of the trust SEH has placed in us,” stated Martial Gerardin, Managing Director, Europe for Perfect Commerce. “It is a recognition of our experience and the excellence of our solutions.”
gretel
13 Mar 2018
New all-time highs now following a main article tip for PHD by SCSW on the weekend.Lots to go for.
IOMINVESTCOM
10 Mar 2018
1 Year chart Just reading SCSW on this company this weekend and spend a little time on the 1 year chart and wanted to share with others who see some importance to them[link]
gretel
07 Mar 2018
Terrific new business update [link] Reports Impressive Multi-National Customer Growth PROACTIS strengthens global presence with 35 customer wins in new and core markets March 06, 2018 06:56 AM Eastern Standard Time WETHERBY, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--PROACTIS, a global Spend Control and eProcurement solution provider, today released details of a series of new multi-national projects that highlight the company is gaining traction in its new and core markets around the world, due to its widening solution portfolio and dedicated commercial teams following the merger with Perfect Commerce. Building on a successful financial year ending July 2017 and a business transformative acquisition during August 2017 which doubled the size of the Group, PROACTIS continues to see significant strength for business transformation initiatives across a wide variety of vertical sectors. Organisations are adopting the latest digital technologies to support improved savings, productivity and responsiveness, while reducing risk. Some of these new customers include: • Over 15 Councils and Government agencies are using PROACTIS to transform their spend management and eCommerce processes. • An East Coast American University has selected PROACTIS to help consolidate purchasing processes across multi-site locations and to leverage its buying power. • A large hospitality group in France, running 600 independent hotels throughout continental Europe, is implementing PROACTIS to bring operational efficiencies to hotel members and transform procurement. • A US State Government organisation – supporting 50-plus state agencies and schools and a population of more than one million people – has selected the PROACTIS end-to-end eProcurement platform. • A UK Not-for-Profit organisation is using PROACTIS to streamline its purchasing, invoicing and expense processes to support straight-through processing efficiencies. • A Netherlands-based global financial institution is using PROACTIS to extend its strategic sourcing to Germany and Turkey. • A leading healthcare management company based in the UK is implementing PROACTIS to support growth by ensuring operational efficiency and rigorous spend management practices. • A global legal firm selected PROACTIS to gain better visibility and control of spend across the entire organisation, especially for its significant IT spend. • A large US restaurant chain is using PROACTIS Sourcing Services to expand its procurement capacity and achieve greater savings across a wide range of direct and indirect categories. • A bank based in Belgium, that also operates in the Netherlands and Luxembourg, has selected PROACTIS Source-to-Contract solutions to maximise efficiency, control and cost savings across its procurement processes. These new customer successes show great progress for the group, and prove PROACTIS is truly building a platform for growth. PROACTIS already helps over 1,000 organisations around the world to transform the way they do business, in ways that add the greatest bottom-line value for them, while improving the way buyers and suppliers engage and interact. Hamp Wall, Chief Executive Officer at PROACTIS, said: “2017 was a transitional and very successful year for PROACTIS and we have already hit the ground running this year. Our success is built on significant investment in the business and our people to ensure that we continue to provide the highest levels of service for our customers so that they gain and sustain value. Recent growth has been fuelled by the increasing awareness among companies that significant savings and greater efficiencies are possible through better spend management practices.”
gretel
01 Mar 2018
Presentation at Sharesoc PHD presented at Sharesoc last month, and there's an interesting summary in this month's Sharesoc newsletter which is just out today:"ProactisThis is an interesting situation in that Proactis is the result of a recent merger between itself and an equivalent company called Perfect Commerce. According to newCEO Hamp Wall these businesses were extremely complementary, despite appearing to be competitors, and so the combination is the best of both their operations. Soafter a period of consolidation where employee numbers were rationalised, and some office locations/data centres closed, a recent trading update shows adjusted EBITDAto be up by >100% with 35 new “labels” won in the half year (I take “labels” to be the equivalent of customers).However a lot of this growth is down to the acquisition itself and that’s a pattern which Hamp Wall intends to continue as Proactis seeks to consolidate the industry and grow by 25-30% pa (inc. organic growth of 10%). This is a reasonable ambition as Proactis is now the 5th biggest player by revenue (2nd largest by profit) behind SAP Ariba and there are lots of small players in the market.As for what Proactis does it’s an intermediary between suppliers and customers. They have a SaaS cloud platform that hosts a large number of suppliers (~2 million)and connects them to around 1000 customers (half private and half public). The customers benefit from organised supplier negotiation (eSourcing), with full auditing, along with eProcurement when they actually buy from a selected supplier using the network/transaction layer which Proactis supply. In addition to directly benefiting their customers Proactis also monetise their supplier pool by helping them to work effectively with customers.So you can see why this is a business that benefits from scale as larger numbers of customers/suppliers feed back in a loop that benefits everyone.In Hamp Wall’s words (and he seems very positive about the future) they are now a global player with a full solution suite in a growth market. They can also self-fund tuck-in acquisitions, rather than raising money in the market every time, and are one of the few PCI-compliant firms which means that they can hold credit card data.With a “prettier” system in place I can see why recurring revenue visibility of >80%, with EBITDA margins at >30%, should allow them to hit their target of £100m in sales (from £55m now) and so achieve the level of profit growth pencilled in by analysts. The only problem is that organic growth is hard to discern in a bolt-on business and it seems that the underlying Proactis arm only managed ~8% in this half-year with the underlying Perfect Commerce being largely flat - so it’ll take a bit of work to meet the overall 10% organic growth target. Still given Hamp Wall’s track record I’m sure that he’ll get there in the end."
PIE-EATER
19 Feb 2018
Re: Great trading update The market was slightly taken aback in a negative way in the autumn so get the impression that PHD are trying to make a point with this statement. If that IS the case...Good on yer !PE
PIE-EATER
19 Feb 2018
Re: Says it all from the latest TU - VERY ST... Sorry, could you just repeat that? Didn't quite catch it !Was that a BUY ?PE
gretel
19 Feb 2018
Great trading update while I was on hols last week:[link] good to see the £5m of post-acquisition cost synergies well on track.The outlook is terrific:"The rate and value of new customer wins and cross-selling activity has been strong in comparison with the prior year on a like for like basis and there was also a healthy contribution of new customer wins from Perfect. The Group's order book and pipeline remain encouraging for the remainder of the year."I can see Finncap's 250p target being met reasonably quickly once the market gets to grips with PHD's potential, recurring income etc.
