Trading Update

Highlights

• Revenue for the 12 months ended 31 December 2023 is expected to be no less than £20.2m (FY22*: £15.3m), representing year-on-year growth in excess of 32%
• Adjusted EBITDA loss** is expected to be ahead of prior expectations at no more than £(3.0)m, representing an improvement of more than 47% year-on-year (FY22*: £(5.7)m)
• Adjusted Loss Before Tax** is expected to be in line with market expectations, excluding the exceptional loss on the sale of Vertus Capital Ltd (“Vertus”), at no more than £(6.3)m (FY22*: £(8.2)m)
•  Oxygen Finance Group Limited ("Oxygen") grew 2023 revenue by more than 18% to no less than £6.2m (FY22: £5.3m)
• Satago Financial Solutions Limited (“Satago”) grew 2023 revenue by 72% to £3.8m (FY22: £2.2m)
• Playstack Limited (“Playstack”) is expected to be EBITDA profitable during 2023, supported by the successful launch of The Last Faith in Q4 2023
• Cash at year end is no less than £9m, of which unrestricted cash is no less than £5.5m, and the Group is fully funded to profitability

 Oxygen

Oxygen reinforced its number one position in the market in 2023. It completed a planned investment of more than £1.2m in its platform and people, with returns on this investment expected to support scaling revenue and profitability in 2024 and beyond. It also acquired bidstats.uk, the UK’s No 1 portal for public sector tendering.

Revenue for 2023 is expected to be no less than £6.2m (FY22: £5.3m). Core Early Payment revenue, accounting for more than 65% of total revenue, grew in excess of 25%. These gains were tempered by flat revenue at its data analytics arm Insight Solutions. This was caused by ongoing market disruption and consolidation which Oxygen is set to benefit from in the short to medium term.

Notwithstanding its planned investment programme, Oxygen delivered another year of profitable growth, generating EBITDA of no less than £1.3m (FY22: £1.1m).

In addition to planned investment and the purchase of bidstats.uk, Oxygen made its second cash dividend payment to TruFin. This totalled £0.5m, up 100% on the previous year (FY22: £0.25m).

By the end of FY23, 4,922 suppliers had chosen to participate in Oxygen’s Early Payment programmes, transacting £1bn of invoices during the year. Additionally, Oxygen’s innovative FreePay programme saw 15,286 small suppliers (FY22: 10,528) benefit from free early payments totalling £0.6bn. This significantly boosted liquidity in Oxygen clients’ local economies.

Highlighting the strength of Oxygen’s client relationships and its cross-selling opportunities, approximately half of Oxygen’s Early Payment clients purchased two or more products in 2023 (FY22: c17%). These factors, combined with its market leading position and profitable growth trajectory, underscore the Board’s confidence in Oxygen’s ability to deliver significant value for shareholders and its attraction to potential acquirers.

Oxygen has successfully integrated bidstats.uk, which is performing in line with management expectations.

Looking ahead, with a pipeline exceeding 100 potential Early Payment clients (40 of which are in the active engagement, commercial negotiation or documentation stages) Oxygen’s outlook is enviable. 

Satago

 2023 saw Satago continue to build momentum and hit significant milestones. Notably, Lloyds Banking Group (the “Bank”) began migrating existing factoring clients onto Satago’s proprietary platform in H2 2023. Following this successful test phase, a material portion of existing Bank clients are expected to migrate during 2024.

Satago also delivered the next phase of its platform in 2023, allowing the onboarding of the first ‘new to Bank’ customer onto the platform. Satago will continue further functionality development during 2024 in support of new client onboarding and migration activities.

Looking ahead, Satago has attracted significant interest in its digitised proposition both from UK and overseas banks which it will foster whilst remaining focused on developing its Lending as a Service (“LaaS”) and Embedded Finance solutions for existing clients.

During 2023, revenue increased more than 70% to £3.8m (FY22: £2.2m). Growth was predominately driven by Satago’s successful rollout of its LaaS product and growing its factoring book. This proprietary lending book continues to perform well and is integral to the marketing of the overall product suite for commercial partners.

Satago’s subscription packages performed strongly in 2023, with the number of paying subscribers more than doubling to 967 (FY22: 430). Significant subscriber growth is expected to continue in 2024 and beyond. The platform’s credit control and risk insights tools in particular are proving transformational to customers.

Satago’s strong performance in 2023 reflects its ongoing commitment to reducing late payment and improving access to finance to an ever-growing pool of small and medium-sized businesses.

Playstack

During 2023 Playstack launched three critically acclaimed games, The Last Faith, AK-Xolotl and CityScapes: Sim Builder. It also secured six platform deals across five separate titles, demonstrating the broad appeal of its IP. Revenue for 2023 was no less than £8.0m (FY22: £6.3m). This was short of expectations due to platform deal delays.

Despite these delayed platform deals, Playstack achieved its target of EBITDA profitability in 2023 after postponing some budgeted costs to mitigate the impact of the revenue shortfall. Playstack remains in advanced negotiations on the delayed platform deals.

In 2021, 85% of Playstack’s revenue was generated from one game; in 2023 Playstack generated 85% of its revenue from eight games. With a healthy back catalogue and a further six major games slated for release in 2024, this trend of revenue diversification is set to continue.

Playstack is focusing its capital on its core strengths - sourcing and publishing console games. Since Playstack’s inception, including all PC and console game launches:

• Average return on invested capital (“ROIC”) on PC/console game ‘advances’ to developers is 384% with a weighted average internal rate of return (“IRR”) per game of more than 300%
  • Excluding the highest grossing game, the average ROIC in PC/console game ‘advances’ to developers is 91%, with a weighted average IRR per game of over 200%
  • The highest ROIC from a single game is currently more than 1,000%
•  Only one game published is expected to see negative ROIC
  • If this game sold no more copies, Playstack would lose a total of £16k on this title

Despite lower-than-expected performance in Q4, Playstack’s appealing returns profile – underpinned by its disciplined and repeatable process for sourcing and selecting games - gives the Board confidence that Playstack will become meaningfully EBITDA profitable in 2024 and beyond.

 

Notes

* adjusted as if Vertus was sold on the corresponding date in 2022 ie 4 October

** loss adjusted to remove share-based payment charges implemented during 2023