Eckoh shares increased 3.8% to 40.5p in late afternoon trading after the company announced a revenue growth of 4% to £31.8 million in FY 2022 against £30.5 million FY 2021 and a gross profit uptick of 5% to £25.4 million compared to £24.2 million.
Eckoh mentioned a US secure payments ARR surge of 82% to £11.9 million from £6.5 million, with a total ARR rise of 48% to £25.2 million compared to £17 million on the back of market opportunity and an ongoing shift to the cloud.
The company noted an adjusted EBITDA increase of 7% to £6.8 million against £6.4 million, alongside an adjusted operating profit growth of 10% to £5.2 million from £4.7 million following its finalised exit from UK and US support, which added £2 million.
However, Eckoh highlighted a pre-tax profit fall of 34% to £2.3 million compared to £3.5 million linked to £1 million in transactional costs from the acquisition of Syntec, and £900,000 in one-off restructuring costs.
The firm said its current order levels were substantially above its Q1 2022 result, with its business pipeline significantly strengthened in Q1 2023 including significant opportunities with blue-chip companies.
Eckoh commented that its first client was deployed and currently live on its new Azure cloud platform, and signed a new three-year contract valued at $1.4 million for voice security and an additional contract worth £600,000 to secure live chat agents with digital payments.
“Eckoh has made significant progress in the last 12 months. We have shown the resilience of our business model, with growth in revenue and operating profit and improved quality of earnings with the completed exit from our Support activity,” said Eckoh CEO Nik Philpot.
“Our momentum is underpinned by fast-growing recurring revenues, with an excellent performance in our US business and a return to growth in the UK.”
The firm reported an expected FY 2023 revenue and profit at substantially higher levels than FY 2022, driven by strong ARR growth, operational efficiencies and the addition of synergistic benefits of the Syntec integration.
“We have started the year strongly, and looking ahead the Board expects FY23 revenue and profits to be significantly higher than FY22, reflecting our ongoing organic growth, continued momentum in the US market, a sustained recovery in UK trading, and the integration of Syntec,” said Philpot.
“In addition, we expect our progress to be supported by long-term structural growth drivers and increasing cloud adoption, coupled with the benefits of new products and operational gearing.”
Eckoh announced an adjusted EPS uptick of 5% to 1.5p compared to 1.4p and an adjusted diluted EPS drop of 8% to 1.3p against 1.4p year-on-year.
The group reported a proposed final dividend of 0.6p per share against 0.6p in the last year for FY 2022.
