Welcome to the Idox full year 2023 results webinar. All attendees are in listen-only mode, and at the end of the presentation, there will be the opportunity to ask questions. This webinar is being recorded. I now hand over to David Meaden, CEO, and Anoop Kang, CFO. David, over to you.
Thank you, Catherine. Good morning, everyone. It's my great pleasure to welcome you to this presentation of the Idox full-year results for the year ended October 2023. As Catherine said , I'm Dave Meaden, I'm CEO of Idox, and I'm joined today by our CFO, Anoop Kang, and together over the next 30 minutes, we'll review our results and provide guidance to how we see the business developing over the coming year. Now, I'm sure many of you, and I know many of you are very familiar with Idox, but today, Idox is a very distinctive software company, one that holds strong positions in several clearly defined markets. We have, over the last five years, significantly increased revenue, annual recurring revenue, and delivered consistently strong margins.
Importantly, the markets in which we operate continue to provide opportunities for future organic growth, and we're embracing new markets with enhanced software and data capabilities that our acquisitions bring to our portfolio. We backed up our margins with strong cash conversion, providing the fuel for us to expand our product portfolio and for an accretive acquisition program that will really create substantial value for shareholders. We performed well as a business in 2018, and our clear focus on what's important has created a flywheel effect in the business. Having completed the walk and fly phases of our transformation, we're now focused on fortifying our foundations, and we have a clear focus on the future. During the year, we delivered and implemented a divisional structure across the business, designed to increase our focus on the opportunities presented by each area of the business.
And you can see here we run those with Land, Property, and Public Protection, Community Solutions, and Assets. We'll provide greater detail on each of these as we progress through the presentation. Next slide, please. So in FY 2023, good results from Idox. Revenue up 11% to GBP 73.3 million. Adjusted EBITDA increased 9% to GBP 24.5 million. And this year, we have another record full year order intake, up 10% on the previous year to GBP 82.4 million. And as I say, I think we provide—we think that provides strong foundations, and a clear focus on the future. Our geospatial capabilities were enhanced during the year with the acquisition of the Emapsite and the continued development of thinkWhere and LandHawk.
The new divisional structure I've talked to has created a much better focus and delivered an improved sales performance, and we continued to cultivate strong customer relationships and market positions throughout the year. Now, at this point, I'll hand over to Anoop, who will take you through our financial results.
Thanks, David. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to our 2023 results presentation. Firstly, let me take you through the results of the group as a whole, and then I'll move on to the individual segments in more detail, pulling out some key themes and observations for the year. Overall, the group delivered a strong performance in the year against the backdrop of continuing macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges, and it's pleasing that the results are in line with our expectations. We delivered revenues of GBP 73.3 million, which were up 11% on last year, and we enforced this solid progress the group has made. Our recurring revenue was up 8% to GBP 43.6 million as we continued to focus on securing long-term recurring contracts with our customers.
The proportion of recurring revenues were in line with 2022 and accounts for 60% of the group's overall revenue, with good growth in Land, Property, and Public Protection and also the communities division. We delivered revenue growth of 24% in LPPP and a stable performance in our assets division. As anticipated, we have an 8% reduction in our community revenues. Pleasingly, our adjusted EBITDA was at 9% and GBP 24.5 million, driven through a combination of new wins, upsells and cross-sells, pricing, and a disciplined approach to cost management, despite the continued inflationary pressures. Overall, we delivered a stable EBITDA margin of 33%. The group ended the period with a strong order intake of GBP 82 million, up 10% on 2022, providing very good visibility into 2024.
This positive contribution to EBITDA has flowed down to adjusted earnings per share, where we delivered an adjusted EPS for the year of 2.62 pence per share, up 7% in 2022. Given the strong results for the year and the continuing growth opportunities we see, our strong financial position and our confidence in the future, we are proposing a 20% increase in the full year dividend to 0.6 pence per share. We'll continue to focus on cash generation and strong cash management throughout the business. And after the payment of the initial consideration of GBP 14.8 million associated with the acquisition of Emapsite, net debt at the year-end is GBP 14.7 million, with our key leverage ratio at less than 1x.
In October 2023, we renewed and increased the size of our RCF facility to GBP 75 million from GBP 35 million and our accordion to GBP 45 million from GBP 10 million for a further three years and on improved terms, providing us with the financial resources to continue to pursue our M&A strategy. So overall, a strong performance for 2023. On the following slide, we've set out the revenue performance of the business since 2020, following the change in management and the refocusing of the business as a specialist software provider. Via a combination of continuing to fine-tune what Idox does well and supplementing this with a number of strategic acquisitions, we've grown the group's revenues by 28% since 2020, of which 11% has been delivered over the past 12 months.
We set out at the beginning of this year need to grow a business built on securing long-term revenue streams, and over the same period since 2020, we've grown recurring revenues by 22%, and 8% of which has been achieved over the past 12 months. Moving on to the next slide. So we work with customers to maintain, strengthen, and extend our existing relationships over a longer term, which has contributed to order intake growth of 31% since 2021 to GBP 82 million, providing us with good visibility of future revenue streams. And of this growth, four growth 14% has been achieved in 2023. As a result, we have ensured the delivery of profitable growth and increased our Adjusted EBITDA by 42% to GBP 24.5 million, so new products and services, cross-selling and process improvements.
Moving on to the next slide, we highlight how we have delivered value for shareholders. As mentioned earlier, our adjusted EPS for the year was GBP 0.0262 per share, up 7% on the prior year. Since 2020, the group has in fact delivered a 78% increase in EPS as the business continues to generate value for shareholders. As a result of the strong performance for the year, we propose a GBP 0.006 per share dividend for the year, which is up 20% on the prior year. Since 2020, we've increased dividends by 100%, reflecting our confidence in the business while maintaining our financial resources to pursue the company's buy and build strategy. Now moving on to breaking down results into our new reporting segments.
Following the reorganization of the business into three distinct divisions in the end of 2022 into the start of 2023, we now present our results under the new divisions of Land, Property and Public Protection, Assets, and Communities. The LPPP division includes our regulatory services to get across planning and building control, our on-prem and cloud solutions for land and planning charges, inspection and enforcement software for licensing and public sector housing, our address management solutions, and our geospatial capabilities. Revenues for this division have grown by 72% since 2020, with a 78% growth in Adjusted EBITDA. The LPPP division accounts for 59% of the group's total revenue and 57% of the group's Adjusted EBITDA in 2023.
Overall revenue for the division in 2023 was up 24% to GBP 43.4 million, with solid growth in local government and cloud. Our 2021 acquisitions Aligned Assets and Exegesis continue to perform in line with our expectations. Emapsite, which was acquired in August 2023, is reported within LPPP and performed in line with our expectations for the first 10 weeks of ownership. Of the GBP 43.4 million of revenue, GBP 24.3 million was generated from recurring revenue streams, representing 56% of the division's total revenue, and was up 11% in the prior year. Non-recurring revenues were up 45% at GBP 19.1 million, where local government and cloud performed very well in the year, as well as Exegesis and thinkWhere. Emapsite revenues for the period were included in non-recurring revenue.
Our order intake for the period is GBP 51.1 million, up 23% on the prior year. This included a mix of new services and large contract extensions, including customers such as the City of Edinburgh Council and the City of Wolverhampton Council. Within cloud, order intake continued to improve and was up 25% on the same period last year, with 18 new customers, including Conwy, Harrow, and Blackburn with Darwen Councils. In address management, order intake was up 29%, with notable wins with ElectraLink and Cadent Gas. We reported an adjusted EBITDA for the year of GBP 13.9 million, representing a 32% margin for the year, which was slightly lower than last year, due to largely through a mix changes and an element of cost inflation. Now moving on to the assets division.
The assets division provides document management and control solutions to asset-intensive industries, facilities management, asset tracking and transportation solutions. The assets division has delivered a broadly stable performance since 2020, with annual revenues of circa GBP 15-16 million per annum and contributing GBP 4 million-GBP 4.5 million of Adjusted EBITDA. In 2023, the division accounts for 20% of group revenues and 17% of group EBITDA. For the year, overall revenue for the division was stable at GBP 14.9 million. Within the division, EIM Solutions delivered a 4% revenue growth year-on-year, with good progress on existing customers such as Wood Group, Duke Energy and SNCF, as well as new wins such as KNPC, Venture Global LNG, and Nexcel.
Revenues for our asset tracking solution, iFIT, were up 6% with the launch of several new programs into the NHS market. Despite some of the macro-economic pressures on the facilities management market, we've seen a steady progress in our FM solutions, with each grew 2% over the course of the year. Recurring revenues remained stable at GBP 9.7 million and represented 60% of the division's revenue, while non-recurring revenue was also stable at GBP 5.2 million. Our order intake for the year remained stable for the period of GBP 15.6 million. The Adjusted EBITDA for the period is GBP 4.2 million, compared to GBP 4.5 million last year, and was impacted by slightly lower margins in transport and EIM. Turning to our communities division.
So the communities division comprises our elections, grants and databases, and social and healthcare solutions. Communities division accounts for 20% of the total group revenue and 26% of group EBITDA. While election events can cause variability in the revenue stream from one year to the next, other parts of the division have acted as a counter to such cyclicality. As anticipated, revenue for the communities division was down 80% in the year at GBP 15 million. In election, given the absence of any major events during the year, we saw election revenues reduced by 26%. We did, however, continue to work for a number of project-based changes to the election management system with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
Our databases solutions continue to attract new customers, particularly in the higher education sectors, where our ResearchConnect solution secured over 130 new customers. We also saw revenues in social care increased by 15%, with recurring revenue growth of 10% in relation to our sexual health solution. So as a result, recurring revenues were up 8% at GBP 9.6 million. The non-recurring revenue reduction to GBP 5.4 million was driven by the previously mentioned impact of elections. There was good order intake for the year at GBP 15.7 million, despite no major election events. In addition to the work, the DLUHC and our work around grants and databases, social care had new wins with customers such as the City of Bradford Council and Doncaster Council.
In sexual health care, we continued to build on the work we're doing with Virgin, and the Brook and Cambridge Community Services. The division ended the period with an Adjusted EBITDA of GBP 6.4 million, with an improvement in margin to 42%. The margin improvement was driven by the mix of impact, the mixed impact of lower election revenues and the higher margin project work during the year. Moving on to the group's cash flow for the year. So the group generated net cash from operating activities before tax of GBP 20.1 million, and against the group's Adjusted EBITDA of GBP 24.5 million, this equated to a conversion rate of 82%. The group paid GBP 1.5 million in taxes in the year and GBP 14.1 million in M&A outlays, net of the cash acquired.
This included the initial consideration of GBP 14.8 million in respect of the Emapsite. In addition, a further GBP 1.6 million relates to Exegesis SDM, and GBP 1 million relates to Aligned Assets, both in connection with the first consideration payments. These payments were in line with our original expectation and now conclude the cash payments associated with these transactions. The group invested GBP 8.5 million in development in CapEx, which is in line with the prior period, and notable investment included that into local government, cloud, and elections. The group paid a 2022 dividend of GBP 0.5 pence per share, which resulted in a total cash outflow of GBP 2.3 million.
After interest, lease, lease payments and other items of GBP 3.1 million, the group moved from a net debt position of GBP 6.7 million at the start of the year to a net debt position of GBP 14.7 million at the end of the year. So finally, moving on to future guidance and outlook. So this is consistent with guidance communicated previously and reflected the medium-term outlook for the business. We expect the group to deliver double-digit revenue growth in 2024, which will include the full year contribution from the Emapsite. From an EBITDA margin perspective, while we expect a short-term margin reduction following the acquisition of the Emapsite, over the medium term, we expect to head towards a 35% adjusted EBITDA margin for a mix of efficiencies and acquisition of higher margin businesses.
In terms of cash generation, we continue to expect the business to generate good levels of cash against EBITDA, and over the medium term, and therefore reducing the net debt position over 2024 and 2025, and then to a cash position thereafter. Having increased the RCF from GBP 35 million to GBP 75 million, and the accordion from GBP 10 million to GBP 45 million, we have significant facilities to progress our M&A work over the coming 12 months. Just finally, in terms of 2024, we have made an encouraging start to the year, with trading in line with the board's expectations. We will continue to invest selectively to grow our capabilities where appropriate. Despite that, this is likely to be an election year. We remain confident about the outlook for 2024 and anticipate delivering double-digit revenue growth in the year.
At this point, I'm going to hand back to Dave, who will take you through the remainder of the presentation. Thank you.
Great. Thanks, Anoop. So, if we move on to strategy and operations. As I've mentioned a number of times in previous presentations, Idox Software delivers specific software for complex business processes driven by legislation or high regulation. Examples would be across the country that we process in excess of 70% of the country's planning applications. We deal with the complexity and sensitivity of sexual health screening and reporting across the country, and we manage the document control on a number of construction mega projects around the world. So 2022 was another good year for the group, and we're pleased to report 177 new clients across the group. In particular, Idox Cloud doing well with 18 new customers and a continued conversion from legacy solutions to cloud for long-standing clients.
In our address management area with Aligned Assets, our order intake was significantly up 29% in the year. Good progress with thinkWhere, where our order intake was up significantly, and we've had a very strong start in 2024. Importantly, the markets in which we operate continue to evolve and provide us with opportunities to upsell and cross-sell our products and capabilities. One such example is the South Kent Building Control Partnership. This is an organization which brings together several local authorities, building control departments, Canterbury, Medway, Swale, and Gravesham Councils, who come together to form a larger and more effective organization, to compete with commercial organizations who also offer such services. By adopting Idox Cloud, they were able to substantially improve their efficiency and outcomes.
It's here where our detailed understanding of business process, combined with smart solutions delivered in the cloud, is understood and really appreciated by our customers. If we move on to the next slide. Throughout this presentation, we've referenced the transformation of the group, and we feel that this continues to be, an evolving and essential part of requirements if we're to continue to grow, and grow sustainably over the medium to long term. So during the year, we always concentrate on the quality of our, our business, and we continue to focus on our four pillars, revenue growth, margins, communication, and simplification. To bring sharper focus, through those four mechanisms to each of these areas.
So enough operationally, we have concentrated on partnerships and how we can move our business forward, both from our databases business and also in our FusionLive business, opening up new channels to provide access to deals and working with our partners in Esri in the utilities area to replace their address management technology as they go forward. We continue to grow our offshore capabilities. Our operation in Pune continues to be very significant to the group and is now over 10% of the company's workforce in Pune. We focus very heavily on sales stratification, ensuring that we focus our sales resources wherever we can on business development and larger transaction activities. And we continue to invest in our internal systems to keep them in pace with our growth.
This involves advancing our Salesforce implementation and also our professional services automation that has gone on during the course of the year. In our strategic work, we are very disciplined in our capital allocation decisions, both for internal development activity, but also for our M&A and bolt-on acquisitions. We continue to drive a very strong sales culture. We genuinely believe that our diversity in the business is our strength. We believe that everybody contributes across Idox to our success in the long term, and it's pleasing during the year to see a 10-point increase in our staff satisfaction ratings. And of course, we always focus on improving our AR. I think that our annual recurring income is a real foundation and indicator of our future success, and that remains at all times a focus for us in the business.
As far as markets and customers go, we're constantly always reviewing pricing, both in a competitive perspective, but also to ensure that we are recipients of the value that we're creating, providing more solutions in the cloud to clients, and developing our product site business. And this, of course, has led us into further M&A, and in venturing into both software and data solutions, for organizations who are looking to provide competitive edge and greater insight to their businesses as they move forward, both in the public and private sectors. So this, we believe, provides us with a platform to continue our growth. And as we go on to the next slide, for those of you who attended, our end-of-year roadshow, the product on this page will be very familiar.
Provide good examples of areas in which we've been able to provide our disciplined approach to capital allocation across the group. Idox Insights is a performance dashboard across planning, building control, environmental services, licensing, and highways, and it's been released and live at Oxford City Council, who are our third site. This is a reporting suite that will in time be applicable for most of our applications across the portfolio, and it's a good example of us using our resources wisely and to most effect across the group. Similarly, the government mandating that local authorities digitize their education, health, and care plans will help boost opportunities for our SEND products across the piece, which we've established over the last few years as a leading product in that area.
In address management, we've seen organizations like Nottingham City Council continue land referencing it to much greater effect. Their Local Land and Property Gazetteer and Local Street Gazetteer integrations, their Unique Property Reference Numbers and Unique Street Reference Numbers at the heart of those gazetteers, have helped them produce a return on investment of six-to-one over the last five years, and indeed, it returned GBP 9.8 million to the council over an eight-year period. This comes from improved accuracy in collection of business rates, integrating data more successfully, and putting in safer housing initiatives and improving their outcomes with waste management. And that gives us great encouragement that the investments we're making in ground mapping and spatialized going forward will be rewarded suitably. On to the next slide, please.
Now, during the year, as people know, we believe that geospatial activities provide a great growth opportunity for the business moving forward from our position—our strong position in land property and public protection. Emapsite is very exciting part of the business. It's doubled its revenues over the last three years. It provides the front-of-house mapping shop that provides maps for a whole variety of industries and users. And from that, the significant users of mapping technology are engaged by Emapsite to introduce their spatialized services, which provide curated data sets to precisely meet client problems. Examples would be CityFibre, and where curated data helps them to understand the parts of the country that are most lucrative to bid for in terms of fiber, and which provide the best opportunity for future sales revenue over time.
Other examples would include TikTok, who are seeking to create an advantage over their rivals by improving the accuracy, delivery, and speed to the client on its selling marketplace. Here, rather than the last mile of getting to the client, we're probably down to the last 30 yards of accuracy to provide real competitive advantage in that area. Now, having discussed some of these examples, and particularly the example at Oxford City Council , we find there are other significant opportunities across our existing client set, particularly in areas like housing management, where clients use mapping and changing geospatial information to evaluate their existing land banks for development and the type of development opportunities, given climate-related change, such as flood risk.
Housing associations and other large property management operations are also using aerial and street photography, LiDAR, and other data sets to remotely value and manage their physical estates. In a digital world, accuracy of data matters and can create real competitive advantage. We believe that it's really important, as we move forward, that these technologies continue to be delivered within our existing product suite, but also present terrific opportunity for us to continue to develop new technologies, new offerings, and new products as we move forward. Next slide, please. Here, at Idox, we genuinely believe that there will be continuing growth in opportunities for software applications that improve the gathering and dissemination of information, that use geospatial technologies and data integration, to bring together otherwise dispersed data.
The really exciting thing for us here is that geospatial information provides the coordinating point to bring together what were previously disparate information sources, and to be able to understand the linkages between those parts of data, without necessarily having to integrate the data sets themselves. That provides real savings for clients over the coming years, and will grow this sector by embracing that integration centered around a comprehensive understanding of land and property. Next slide, please. So far, so what we can see in 2023 is an excellent and continuing excellence in performance. We're a well-run and managed company with a very strong culture and a very distinctive and clearly articulated set of propositions.
We work in really strong markets that provide great opportunities for growth, and in addition, we're adding capabilities that substantially increase our future addressable target markets, which we enter through strength anchored in land property management. We significantly outperformed the AIM general index, the FTSE comparable index since 2021, and we've built both consistency and forward momentum in the business. We'll continue to invest selectively and enhance and grow our capability based on the group's already strong recurring income. We have a very attractive M&A pipeline, and as Anoop outlined, we feel we have significant financial resources to continue to deliver accretive M&A and create value for shareholders. And as Anoop also said, we've had an encouraging start to 2024, trading in line with our expectations, and we remain very confident about the year ahead.
Thank you for your time, and we'll be happy to take any questions you might have.
Many thanks. So to verbally ask your question, click on the Raise Hand button or type your question clicking on the Q&A button. And we've got a question from Kai Korschelt from Canaccord. Kai, do you want to unmute yourself? Go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Morning. Can you hear me?
We can.
Yeah, perfect.
Okay.
Sorry, there might be a bit of background noise. I had three questions, if that's okay. So, if you could please bear with me. The first one was around the organic growth, and I think it was around like just 7% for the year, and I believe, perhaps 12 months ago, I think the hope was to deliver double digits. So I'm just wondering kind of what were maybe the areas that didn't quite hit the mark in terms of maybe your expectations for the year? And then, maybe that's the answer, just asking about the financial situation of some councils. There's obviously been some studies about the financial difficulties. I'm just wondering, how do you see this impacting kind of growth, either backward-looking or forward-looking? That's the second question.
The third one was around the general elections. Obviously, it's been a bit of a sort of weak year for that part of your business. How and when, you know, would you expect that to benefit Idox? Thank you.
Right, thanks.
Should I take the first one?
Yeah.
Yeah. So, Idox plc, you know, has performed in line with our expectations. I think, you know, the outset at the beginning of 2023, we said, look, you know, we expect a double-digit growth. I think if I was looking at the three divisions, you know, we expected the shortfall or the reduction in communities. I would pinpoint it around assets, actually, and specifically within assets. I think we had expectations that, you know, despite the IM growing at 4%, we probably wanted to do a bit more. Transport was up a little bit in those areas as well. So I think, you know, I think it's predominantly around the assets division, which, you know, has delivered a stable performance for the year.
But I think, you know, at the start of the year, probably wanted it to just push on a bit more.
Yeah, I think there it's important to point out that, you know, our core markets and the things that have driven growth remains very strong for the group. Our assets division is probably more susceptible to the geopolitical changes that are going on, a little bit more susceptible to the higher interest rates, which have held back some capital investment programs, and, you know, a little bit more susceptible generally to higher inflation environments. So, I think that's there. And, as you pointed out, in a non-election year, revenues were drawn back a little bit in our communities business. But growth in our core LPP business was incredibly strong, and gives us a lot of confidence that the strategy that we've outlined for the group is the right one, and continue to be aggressively sought after, really.
Financial situation of the councils?
Yeah, you're right. During the year, a number of councils have issued Section 114 notices. That is the declaration that sort of says effectively the councils are bankrupt, and they need to produce a new balanced budget. Unlike the NHS and other parts of the public sector, a local authority has to produce balanced budgets. They can't work in deficit. The 114s that have been issued to date have tended to be from councils that have had some sort of extraneous event, which has created the short-term problem.
So, in London Borough, that has been investment in private property and private investing their money into rental schemes that haven't and not produced the income that they expected and having to take a certain down marking on the value of their commercial properties. In other areas, like at Birmingham, I think it's well noted that the problem was created by a very large pension, sorry, a very large deficit due to an equal pay notification that was given to them some time ago. So, you know, generally, councils have been working against a downward trend in budgets for some considerable time. This is nothing new for local councils. That's been happening over a decade.
But what tends to happen in those environments is that as they improve their efficiency and look to improve the way that they interact with the public, automation is a critical part of that, and software is at the heart of driving those efficiencies to help them become more effective and efficient into the future. So ironically, or conversely, I should say, that as councils come under pressure, a larger percentage of their budget tends to be spent on software and IT to enable them to work in a digital fashion rather than seeing a reduction in those environments. And of course, a lot of the areas in which we work are revenue generating for councils. So planning applications, in particular, licensing, permitting, are things that actually bring cash into those organizations, and so tends to have a priority in terms of spend.
But we are mindful that in an election year, things can, you know, be a little confusing for people trying to make long-term plans when governments aren't exactly committed to long-term spending arrangements. So we're very mindful of all of that, but as I say, it's nothing new, and during the last five years, those conditions have been around, and we continued to move forward. But I would also say that's also part of our rationale to improve the scope and areas that we operate in, in working around what we do with geospatial. And some of the examples I think we've given today show how our existing client base can also benefit from geospatial technology, creating real savings and real efficiencies for them, as well as providing new markets in which we can provide both software and curated data services.
Last one ? Elections, you can say.
Yeah, I think we'll see how we go during the course of the year. I mean, yeah, I think if we have an election in the year, then clearly, you know, that will be a boost to the revenue going forward. On the opposite side of that, margins in that election business are generally reduced because we have more third party throughputs help support the election at that time. I think as we get towards the end of the year and the election that's been pushed out, will continue to be the work that we have lined up with Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to deliver software changes and improvements that are required. And from a margin perspective, that should give us adequate coverage.
I don't think either way will make a significant difference to the profitability of the group over the period.
No, and in terms of our sort of phasing, we are currently assuming that it's a second half event for us. But as Dave says, I mean, if it were to slip into November or December, you know, it doesn't have an overall material impact to the position, because we are continuing to do work over the course of the year in being ready for the elections.
That's great, color.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
We'll go to Julian Yates at Investec. Julian, do you want to unmute yourself? Go ahead.
I do. Thanks very much. Can you hear me?
We can. Thank you.
Excellent. Thanks. Just a couple of questions from me. It's sort of picking on the organic growth number, again, and that was sort of, I guess, driven, as you say, by LPPP. That's a very strong growth, 20%+ within the Idox Cloud piece. Is it possible to sort of pick out the sort of quantum of revenue that, that sort of, that product now has, and the sustainability of, of those levels of growth? I'm thinking you still have a very big install base on old school uniform. If you could just give us some clarity or expectations on install base migrations, because that's clearly a pretty visible, potentially visible part to driving recurring revenue growth.
So that's the Idox Cloud piece, and then how that will filter down and help push the overall growth rates of the business, the organic growth rate of the business. Could that sort of deliver it above the 5%-6% levels as an organic? Is that in your mindset, is that kind of where you're sort of angling for, or should we be seeing this as a mid-single digit player? Just interested and sort of see where clearly it depends what falls, but those scenarios would be helpful. The second question is M&A. Lot on that in the presentation, clearly flagging opportunities there. It's been bolt-ons to date. You've sort of indicated the firepower is there.
I guess maybe if we could talk about sort of larger deal scope for that, financial scope, appetite for that. You've got the platform now, I guess, confidence to integrate larger deals. It will be sort of interesting on that sort of precise sort of question.
Sure. Shall I take both or?
Either. I mean, I can have a go at the cloud one.
Okay.
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I mean, we haven't sort of publicly given a number around the cloud, but what I can say is that cloud, since we, you know, through the Tascomi acquisition back in 2019, you know, we've been growing it at sort of more than 20% per annum. And similarly for FY 2023, when the revenue growth was 26%, the recurring revenue growth was 32%. I think, you know, we have still got an opportunity there because a significant number of our customers are still on sort of the, the on-prem and hosted solutions.
So, you know, we do see over the next 12, 24, 36 months, significant opportunity in moving what is probably about a 25%-30% customer base that has transitioned over to taking, and encouraging and moving with customers over to the cloud. So I think that does present an opportunity with us. And as we do that, that automatically, because we're moving to a SaaS type, type of platform, transition, a lot of revenue from non-recurring to a recurring revenue stream, which again should top end the work. So I, I do think there is significant opportunity for us over the coming year in that space.
Yeah, I think the only thing I would add to that is that you can imagine with all the challenges that local authorities have, both financially and the competing priorities that are given by government to address some of the issues. We've seen what's happening in schools, with school estates and things falling apart. The other regulation that they're now putting to SEND and higher education and so on. There's a lot of things for local authorities to be thinking about.
We seem to have an internet interruption. We will get them back as quickly as possible. Sorry about this.
Now, we've clearly shown clients who wanted to make the move, that they can make the move extremely well over to the cloud with us. And we've been really encouraged by the transitions that have taken place so far. So our job at the moment is to make sure that when clients are ready to make the change, we can make it as smoothly and as easy as possible for them. And we continue to have great success where we go. So I wouldn't use the word old school. I would use the word gold standard, by the way. I think that's the right thing to do when you have a 70% or so market share. I think people have already seen value in the software that we bring, the quality of our people and services.
Turning to M&A.
Just, just a follow-up. Just a quick follow-up on that.
Yeah.
In terms of, if I may, in terms of that sort of gold standard product, in terms from a margin point of view, is it important for the company to migrate to the cloud? Or, you know, some companies, you get a much higher margin kicker when you move to the cloud sort of environment is that the case for yourselves, or you're not really that reliant from a margin point of view, just more earnings quality point of view?
Yeah. Well, it will, it becomes an enhancer to earnings for sure when we move clients across the cloud. There's less third party pass-through as we go.
Yeah.
But obviously, you can see in the results, we drive solid and good and reliable margins across the business, but it always helps when we move clients through the cloud program for sure.
Got it. Thank you.
Thanks. In terms of M&A, a good attractive pipeline. I think as you rightly point out, Julian, we've shown that we can integrate and deliver success through smaller acquisitions. And we continue to do much of the generation within ourselves. We think that's important. We like, we like to develop engagements and relationships with the companies that we like to acquire. We're very clear about the added value that they bring way before we engage them and bring them into the company. And we have a very proficient leadership and management group who are skilled in integrating the businesses and have an ambition to move the business forward significantly. So we're always alert to potentially larger opportunities. We monitor those, we think, across the piece.
We, as a board, feel it's important to remain agile to opportunities as they may emerge during the course of the next two or three years. So, yeah, I mean, M&A will absolutely play a part in continuing to drive the Idox story over the next couple of years.
Great. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
We'll go to you, James Lockyer at Peel Hunt. James, could you unmute yourself? Go ahead.
Thank you for taking the questions. The first one is a follow-up from Julian, I guess, in terms of the cloud transition. Obviously, you know, over time, you've been able to persuade more of them to come on. What are the sort of main reasons why, you know, you, you've been able to persuade them? Is it the confidence in the cloud itself, or are they seeing partner authorities taking, you know, making benefits from it? Or the fact that you've now got more tools or you're investing in more things that sort of will help them contribute themselves. What's sort of the main reason why you're continuing to transition people across? And is that accelerating, I guess, that would be interesting.
Second question, on LPPP, looking at the EBITDA, the increase year on year looks a bit softer, but I would imagine that there's a decent amount of investment within that, from for geospatial, not least, Emapsite. How should we think about the underlying EBITDA in 2023 versus 2022, and if any color on the investment you're putting into to geospatial within that business? And then finally, you mentioned TikTok quite briefly, in your remarks. Could you provide more color on that deal, how it came about? Was it inbound, outbound, and what's the potential for it to grow there? If they are looking to compete against Facebook Marketplace, it might be quite interesting. Thank you.
So the first one in terms of, you know, why are people moving across? And I guess we did see an acceleration of clients being interested in moving across to the cloud for lots of reasons. You know, not least of which, security, being able to manage on-premise systems with resources that are competed very heavily within the local authority and the demands that are placed upon them. And I think local authorities understanding that the strategic nature of their IT resources need to be deployed on new thinking and new ways of working, as opposed to maintaining infrastructure and existing states of products and services that have been delivered over a long period of time.
But as I said earlier, you know, there are also those counterbalancing factors of, restricted budgets and limited focus to be able to do some of those things over time. So, my view would be is that we will continue to see this kind of growth and this kind of activity in our cloud business over the forthcoming periods, and that may accelerate a little bit in the next two to three years, as inevitably people will have a bit more time to sort of come on board with that. In that period, it's also obviously encouraging, you can see your peers making a success of those implementations and gaining the outcome benefits that they were hoped for. So I think those factors will help to continue, you know, the acceleration of the move to the cloud.
Today, as I pointed out earlier, you know, we maybe have a 20%-25% conversion of existing clients into that cloud environment. So still plenty to go at, and half our wins in this area are always brand new wins from competitors in the sector.
LPPP margins.
Sorry, what was that?
Yes, James, as you point out, yes, the LPPP margin moved from 38% to 32%, from 2022 into 2023. I think, if you were to try and get a run rate sort of basis, taking out the impact of Emapsite, it'd be closer to 34%-35%. You know, I think we. And that reduction from the 38% from last year really is kind of driven through a little bit of cost inflation through sort of, IT service providers, the impact of a 5% pay rise last year coming through, and a little bit of mix change between 2022 and 2023. So you know, I think, you know, as we've talked about before, Emapsite is not a 35% margin business.
You know, there was a reason behind why we did the acquisition, which we did through. I think, you know, I think if you were preparing that, like I said, it's about 34-35%.
Yeah. And in terms of the, specific sites and so on, I'm not sure I can give you all the history in the background to that, because I wasn't there. However, my understanding is that some. As you know, Emapsite have, a front of house, easy-to-use mapping, marketplace, where you can go online and buy maps and buy data sets, if you really like to, using a credit card. However, for larger customers, they come in and buy mapping on, for various areas and various operations on a regular basis.
Having become a client by buying maps through that marketplace, the specialized team engage with those guys to really, you know, discover what they were using those maps for and the business problems that they were trying to resolve. It became apparent then that, you know, the more strategic engagements around their business goals, the competitive environment in which they're working, and their desire to create precision with the delivery side of their marketplace activity, so that they could drive greater efficiency in the delivery process and higher customer satisfaction by meeting requirements for delivery times, precision of things, and less parts of going missing, additional terms that happen as a result of doing those things.
Ensuring that, you know, that accuracy down to, as I describe it, down to the last 30 yards and rather than the last mile, becomes a significant factor for them. So being able to furnish the business with that geographic and location detail and with much more precision, became very helpful, helping them with their address management capabilities. And I think the ongoing engagement there is around, adding further color, both the geography and location activity, but also helping them understand their clients, better. They have tons and tons of information, as you know, on their customers, their preferences, and needs and requirements. But engaging, with the Emapsite team, there are a number of other provisions and services that they can make, we hope that we'll help them, improve that even further.
So hopefully, it remains a good client opportunity moving forward. Yeah.
That's great. Thank you, guys.
We'll go to Ian Robertson at Progressive. Ian, do you want to unmute yourself?
Morning, guys. Two questions. First of all, on the R&D and the sort of general development expenditure as to where that's being applied, and this whole question of what can be capitalized, what can't be capitalized, and how that might sort of flow through over the next sort of 12, 24 months. And then also the big general question as to geospatial: What do they do in other countries? Because it strikes me that this, unlike a lot of public sector, local council stuff, this is internationally relevant.
Right. Okay. So Ian, on R&D. So our sort of development team probably we spend about GBP 11 million-GBP 12 million a year in that area, and we capitalize between GBP 7 million-GBP 8 million. So the element that really is expense and goes through the P&L is more sort of research in nature, you know, being, having visibility of the long term revenue streams. Once it becomes a sellable proposition, the accounting standards allow you to then capitalize those costs and put them on the balance sheet. And so, you know, we're very sensible around what we do put on the balance sheet and what we don't put on the balance sheet.
We think, you know, up until a point that actually we don't think, we think the revenue streams associated with it, we will expense it, which I think is the right thing to do.
So you're mid-process there for geospatial, really? So you're sort of mid-process there for geospatial. You know, you're developing, but you haven't got revenue, so you haven't quite got the visibility you think?
Well, we have, we have the visibility with the individual businesses, and I think, you know, the piece of work that we're doing now and moving back on and, you know, where Sandy and the team is around, actually, how do we combine it all together? How do we then take that proposition to customers? How do we then connect what we're doing in the private sector with the public sector and vice versa? So there's a piece of work that's ongoing around there, and I think, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll finesse that and work through that over the next 12 to 18 months.
Yeah. Right. Thanks.
In terms of the international stuff, Ian, I think our focus absolutely remains in the U.K. We're getting tons of opportunity here for us, and, and I think it's the combination, you know, what is it that can make Idox unique in this area? It's that combination of skills around, around land, property, public protection and assets, that combined with geospatial, makes a very, very powerful value-added proposition for clients. I think you're right on geospatial. It clearly is international. We've seen tremendous success from some other U.K. GIS companies that are being able to formulate propositions that are attractive overseas. And who knows, in due course, that we may get led there by the success of solutions that we, we found, we find embedding to the U.K. market.
But for right now, it's largely focused for us into the U.K. and establishing that market as our stronghold.
Right. Thanks. Thank you.
We've got a question from Ciarán Donnelly from Berenberg, which I'll read out. In terms of M&A, can you talk about valuation multiples in the geospatial sector currently and how they've evolved over the past few years?
I'm always reluctant to talk about valuations because I think, you know, you don't want to be hung by your own sword, if it were. Well, obviously, you know, you can see the multiples that we've paid for Emapsite . We were very excited about that business because of its growth and development, and in particular, the way that they have used curated data and software solutions to deliver really outstanding value to customers. We felt that was worth us paying the multiple that we paid. Equally, I think we paid small multiples for LandHawk and for what we think there. Aligned Assets probably works out to being around sort of 10x earnings, that sort of stuff. So they do vary a little.
I suspect how would I describe the geospatial market? I think the geospatial market is diverse and dispersed, and I think that hopefully plays to an advantage for us, as we're able to find sensible value acquisitions that we can create further accreted value out by binding them together and tying them into the solutions that we already provide to the market. I think that's where we'll create a lot of value. But as ever, you know, we're looking for high-quality businesses, and we're happy to pay the right rate for high quality coming into the group.
Great. Thank you very much. Another question from Josef Cutajar from Allianz Investors. What are your borrowing plans for the foreseeable future in the context of the maturity of the bond in 2025, the strong cash position, and the company's buy and build strategy to further expand its business and operations?
Yeah. So we moved the RCF forward, as I explained a bit earlier, back in October. So we have now a facility of an RCF of GBP 75 million, and an accordion of 45. In thinking about what level to set that, we were thinking about, we gave quite a lot of thought to the M&A over the next 12-18 months. In addition to that, the bond is due in June 2025, and our plan would be to redeem the bond, and make use of the facility to make that redemption. You know, I think as we're currently structured and that, and that size of facility, it feels appropriate given where we are, given some of the opportunities that we're looking at, and taking into account of the bond.
I think clearly, if we start to think about and start to move into bigger M&A, then the capital structure is clearly a piece of work that we would look to move on, and that would be beyond the current facilities that we have.
Great. Thank you very much. And that's the end of questions. David, do you have any closing remarks?
Well, firstly, thank you for your time. We know you've been doing lots of other things, and although we get to chat to most of you during the year, we really do appreciate you taking the time out to listen to us. Idox has been a really strong journey over the last five years. First part of getting the business back into shape, the second part in accelerating our growth and really improving the dynamics in the business. This next part of our journey is an equally exciting one. Being able to, you know, drive our business forward further and add greater capability to the group through a selective M&A program, I think provides a really strong opportunity for further shareholder growth over that period, and it's something we're really looking forward to.
You know, we hope that having been a really strong performer across all the end industries over the last five years, we will continue to be an outstanding group and a high-quality group that will attract support over the next period. So, looking forward to this next period forward, that part of the journey that should be a little more exciting and less grind than we've done in the past. But thanks again for your time. Much appreciated.
Many thanks, David and Anoop, and to you all for joining. This is the end of the webinar.