First Dealings

Infoserve Group PLC 23 June 2006 INFOSERVE GROUP PLC ('Infoserve', 'the Company' or 'the Group') Admission to AIM - Share dealings in Infoserve, the 'local' online search engine, begin today on AIM. - Infoserve has raised £2 million (before expenses) via a placing of 4,860,267 new Ordinary Shares at 41.15p per share. WH Ireland is the Company's Nominated Adviser and Broker. - Infoserve specialises in 'local search' marketing, where buyers and sellers are brought together through searches combining a specific business sector with a particular location. - The Company is soon to launch a new, Oracle-based local search platform. - Infoserve operates within the online and mobile network directory market, the importance and popularity of which are expanding quickly. Research suggests that when looking for goods and services locally, 76% of UK consumers would first search online. - Company growth evidenced by rapidly increasing turnover,rising from £ 0.8 million in 2004 to £1.5 million in 2005 and £0.6 million for the first quarter of this year. - The Company lists approximately 2.7 million small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in its family of online business directories. - Key strategic partners include The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, the Football League and Sky Digital TV. - New funds raised will be used to invest in expanding the sales team and further developing Infoserve's local search technology. - At the placing price, Infoserve's market capitalisation is approximately £6 million. Steve Barnes, Chief Executive Officer comments 'I am delighted with our move to AIM. We believe that Infoserve has a number of leading local search products which gives us a great platform from which to gain a leading position in the rapidly growing online directory market.' Press enquiries Steve Barnes, Chief Executive Officer Tel: +44 (0)113 238 7170 Infoserve Group plc Biddicks - Financial Public Relations Tel: +44 (0)20 7448 1000 Zoe Biddick PLACING STATISTICS Placing Price 41.15 p Number of New Ordinary Shares being placed on behalf of the Company 4,860,267 Number of Ordinary Shares in issue immediately following the Placing 14,580,267 Percentage of the Enlarged Share Capital available in the 33.33 per cent Placing Market capitalisation on Admission at the Placing Price £5,999,780 Estimated gross proceeds of the Placing receivable by the £2 million Company Estimated net proceeds of the Placing receivable by the Company £1.61 million COMPANY OVERVIEW Infoserve specialises in online local search marketing whereby buyers and sellers are brought together through searches combining a specific business sector with a particular location. Infoserve has focused on the local search market since 1999 and has a database of 2.7 million business records which are listed across a network of 280 websites. This network includes a portfolio of wholly owned business directory and specific industry websites, the websites of a number of major online media partners such as the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the BBC Radio Times, as well as Football League official club sites and Sky digital TV. These sites receive over 24 million visitors per month. Infoserve has an established business model, with over 10,000 UK customers, consisting mainly of small and medium-sized enterprises (''SMEs''). Infoserve offers these businesses opportunities to achieve greater consumer awareness through a range of products. These include enhanced business listings and improved positioning, website creation, advertising banners and SMS marketing solutions. Infoserve has built up a team of over 100 sales executives and intends to develop its business model by expanding its sales team to over 300 over the next 24 months, enabling it to increase its customer base. Infoserve is soon to launch a new Oracle-based local search platform. This will incorporate the use of keywords linked to specific business records which describe the products, brands and services offered by businesses in order to provide more relevant and detailed local search results than are currently provided by competitors. The Directors believe that Infoserve has an advantage over its main competitors which are, principally, search engines and traditional business directory providers. Infoserve offers local search results across a broad range of high profile branded websites, and increasingly enables consumers to search for goods and services by specific keywords, across a growing range of technology platforms to give greater relevance to local search results. The Company proposes to seek admission of its entire issued and to be issued ordinary share capital to trading on AIM and is raising up to £2 million by way of a placing of 4,860,267 New Ordinary Shares. The proceeds of the Placing will be used to invest in expanding the sales team and further developing Infoserve's local search technology. MARKET BACKGROUND Local search, allowing businesses within a particular locality to be found, is not an entirely new phenomenon and has existed for many years in the form of telephone and printed business directories. However, traditional advertising methods are now beginning to be challenged by online local search, as the use of digital and mobile technology grows. Online local search is beginning to make an impact, producing results limited to a specific locality and allowing advertisers to target specific products and places. Recent research suggests that when looking for goods and services locally, 76 per cent of UK consumers would first go online, compared to 18 per cent who would consult a paper directory and 6 per cent who would call a directory enquiry service. Online local search is now an important component in marketing strategy. Online and mobile network searching provides greater depth and detail than previously available through paper directories. Real-time updated business records can be viewed which can include full descriptions of each business and the products and services available as well as maps and directions, thereby delivering a more informative result and service to consumers. With approximately 40 per cent of all online searches relating to products and services near a person's home or work, local search represents an opportunity for advertisers to connect with their customers. According to recently published research, the worldwide local search market will grow from $347million in 2004 to $4.07 billion by 2010. The UK is currently the largest online advertising market in Europe. The Directors expect that the UK online local search market will experience similar growth to the worldwide local search market. HISTORY Infoserve was established in 1999 with the vision of harnessing the potential of the internet as a marketing tool to deliver accurate, useful and more detailed local content to consumers than had previously been available. Infoserve established www.cityvisitor.co.uk, one of the early online business directories in the UK, in 2000, and developed this site into one of the most used business finders on the internet in the UK. Between 2000 and 2003, a period when investment by SMEs in online marketing was low, Infoserve's strategy was to build its technical platform and improve search performance in readiness for the anticipated growth in online marketing by SMEs. In 2003, Infoserve began to broaden its customer base by listing local outlets of regional and national businesses. Infoserve's development continued with the opening of sales operations in Teesside in 2004 and in Leeds in the following year. OVERVIEW OF THE BUSINESS Infoserve is a provider of online marketing services to SMEs in the UK. Infoserve provides marketing services to its customers by presenting them to potential purchasers of their goods and services who are searching online for local suppliers. Infoserve enables its business customers to be found across a network of both general directory and industry specific websites, as well as on Sky digital TV and mobile phones. Infoserve offers these businesses opportunities to achieve greater consumer awareness through a range of products. These include enhanced business listings and improved positioning, website creation, advertising banners and SMS marketing solutions. Revenue Infoserve currently has three distinct income streams. Over 70 per cent of revenue is derived from selling enhanced business listings and improved positioning for businesses within Infoserve's network of sites, in order to offer greater exposure to consumers. All 2.7 million businesses are listed free of charge across the network but paid-for listings are enhanced through the addition of prominent text and graphics as well as by being positioned above free listings. Revenue is also derived from the design, production and hosting of websites, and domain name purchase and registration. The Directors expect that, as over 51 per cent of UK SMEs do not have their own websites, this product category will grow as a revenue stream. The third revenue stream consists of pay per click revenue from major search engines arising from advertisements placed by those search engines on Infoserve's websites and from commission earned on hotel bookings that are generated from a search on one of Infoserve's sites. Products and services Infoserve provides its services through a variety of wholly owned websites and a growing number of partner sites. Information on businesses is delivered across a range of technology platforms, including the interactive Sky digital TV network and a local SMS marketing solution. Wholly owned websites SMEs can often find it expensive and difficult to achieve sufficient prominence in search engine results. This creates an opportunity for Infoserve who are able to aggregate the details of a number of SMEs into one website which spreads the cost of promotion for each company. Infoserve is the registered owner and operator of directory sites such as www.cityvisitor.co.uk as well as over 130 specific industry websites, such as www.accountantlocal.co.uk and www.rentsomewhere.co.uk. These websites provide relevant business listings in specific UK locations. The Cityvisitor directory contains business data across 531 product categories in over 3,500 town and city locations. Cityvisitor and many of the specific industry websites regularly appear on the first page of results on major search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo, and give the listed businesses a prominence they would find difficult to achieve on their own. Partner websites Infoserve has entered into commercial agreements with a number of media companies which allow Infoserve to provide a local business search facility for the media companies' own websites. Agreements of this sort have been won in respect of the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Sunday Telegraph, the Mail On Sunday, the Evening Standard and the BBC Radio Times amongst others. These agreements enable Infoserve to provide additional exposure for its local business customers. A commercial agreement in respect of the websites of over 40 Football League clubs (including three current Premier League teams) creates a further platform for businesses to be exposed to visitors to these high profile websites. The popularity of football in the UK ensures that clubs' websites can rank as among the most popular sites in a locality, which in turn drives traffic to Infoserve's local search facility. In addition, the importance of these football club sites contributes to Infoserve's search engine rankings. Other commercial agreements with online directory partners 192Directory and On-Line UK provide Infoserve's local business customers with further exposure on over 140 sites. Digital TV Through an agreement with British Sky Broadcasting Limited (Sky Television), the full Infoserve data-set can be accessed on television via the set-top box, bringing some 8 million households, 20 million consumers, and over 10 million monthly users of Sky's interactive service onto the Infoserve network. Infoserve intends to offer local businesses enhanced listings and exposure within their product category and location on Sky's interactive service. SMS. A small amount of additional revenue is derived from Txt2Mkt, a local marketing product which enables a business to send targeted promotional messages over mobile phones to a database of 'opted in' customers. Infoserve is also testing the provision of responses to enquiries from consumers about local businesses through SMS texting. Product development Infoserve is committed to constantly developing new products to offer business customers improved, more cost-effective marketing solutions. It is intended that creative design and innovative software and hardware implementation will be at the centre of future product enhancements. Product development will focus on delivering local search across a number of different technology platforms including digital TV and mobile networks. In the current financial year, Infoserve intends to introduce new Oracle-based software. This custom-written software is designed to give more relevant and detailed local search results than currently provided by search engines and traditional business directories. The software will provide more specific information on products and services available from the 2.7 million businesses comprising Infoserve's database. The Directors believe that, eventually, consumers will no longer search by general category but will search for more specific products, brands and services in particular UK locations. Customers Infoserve's customers range from large multi-nationals to SMEs throughout the UK. Most customer agreements are for a period of 12 months. Renewal rates for business listings are running at approximately 65 per cent and the Directors expect this rate to increase. Sales and marketing The Company's principal means of achieving sales is through telephone sales personnel whose function is to develop relationships with the local businesses on which data is held. Infoserve employs over 100 telephone sales personnel at offices in Teesside and Leeds. The Directors believe that the key to the Group's future success is to scale up its telephone sales operation and it plans to increase the number of telephone sales personnel by approximately 10 per month until September 2008. During the sales process, sales personnel confirm the products and services offered by the customer's business as well as offering the customer the opportunity to enhance its listing and to purchase any of Infoserve's other products and services. Infoserve also employs a small number of field sales personnel to build relationships with and sell its products and services to more complex businesses, often with multiple locations. Technology Infoserve is developing a local search taxonomy in relation to UK business. This classification of products and services links search terms to other related search terms so that a more relevant result can be delivered. Infoserve will shortly complete a project that involves searching all UK business websites to extract keywords relating to those businesses. It is expected that this project will be completed during the third quarter of the current financial year. The Directors believe that the combination of the taxonomy and these keywords will give Infoserve an important advantage over its existing local search competitors. Infoserve has developed, in conjunction with a third party supplier, a bespoke designed Oracle-based software platform that is central to every aspect of its operations. This application enables its entire network of websites to be updated each time a business record is amended or a sale to a customer is made. This design enables data to be managed throughout the business and within minutes of a customer, for example, adding a new keyword, all internal records and external websites can be updated automatically. The technology is scalable for new markets and products, as well as future growth in user traffic and in the partner network. Infoserve has developed high levels of search engine optimisation skills since 2000. This in-house skills base, supplemented by external consultants where necessary, has allowed Infoserve's websites to appear regularly on the first page of results on major search engines. Data Infoserve's data on UK businesses originates from 18 separate sources and covers most businesses in the UK. The Company processes more than 100,000 updates each month in order to maintain and improve its data records. Infoserve's new Oracle-based software will allow real-time updates to business records across its entire network of sites, thereby improving data accuracy. Employees As at 31 March 2006, the Group employed 157 people, over 100 of whom were employed in sales functions. During 2005 Infoserve experienced high levels of telephone sales personnel turnover. This has been successfully addressed by the introduction of improved recruitment procedures, better training, closer management control and an improved product offering which has helped to achieve greater sales. The Company encourages all staff to contribute thoughts and ideas on how to improve any aspect of the business. The Group's culture is one of team achievement and performance. Competitors The leading paper-based directory businesses, Yellow Pages and Thompson directories have developed to deliver business directories in a number of ways, including paper, online, directory enquiries and SMS. In addition, the major search engines are attempting to increase the amount of local information available to users. There are also a large number of small, regional business directory services, both on and offline. The Directors believe that Infoserve has a different business model to each of these competitors and does not compete directly with any one of them. The leading directory businesses remain predominantly paper-based and continue to classify businesses by broad category headings. Search engines offer a limited solution to local businesses, which may have no website or which are unable to command a position on the first pages of search results. In contrast, by offering local search positions across a broad range of websites and increasingly enabling consumers to search for businesses by specific keywords, the Directors believe that Infoserve has an advantage over its competitors. Strategy Infoserve's strategy to achieve continued growth includes expanding its sales and marketing operation; growing the network of wholly owned and partner sites to increase consumer traffic; and establishing a comprehensive database of keywords relating to the goods and services offered by businesses. SUMMARY FINANCIAL INFORMATION The following financial information on Infoserve has been extracted without material adjustment from the historic financial information on Infoserve for the year ended 31 May 2003 (unaudited), the two years and seven months ended 31 December 2005 (audited) and the three months ended 31 March 2006 (audited). Year ended Seven months Year ended Year ended Three months 31 May ended 31 December 31 December ended 2003 31 December 2004 2005 31 March 2003 2006 £ £ £ £ £ Turnover 178,948 158,182 823,462 1,470,813 618,174 ======= ======== ======== ======== ======= Gross (loss)/profit (153,648) (88,068) 320,937 (567,951) (258,664) Administrative expenses (107,634) (128,651) (285,842) (885,959) (410,966) Other operating income - - 69,027 - - -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- Operating (loss)/profit (261,282) (216,719) 104,122 (1,453,910) (669,630) Interest receivable - - - 3,903 975 Interest payable and similar charges (964) (969) (11,155) (38,472) (56,595) -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- (Loss)/profit on ordinary activities before taxation (262,246) (217,688) 92,967 (1,488,479) (725,250) Tax on (loss)/ - - - - - profit on -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- ordinary activities Profit/(loss) transferred to reserves (262,246) (217,688) 92,967 (1,488,479) (725,250) ======== ======== ======== ======== ======== The growth in sales since the year ended 31 December 2003 can be attributed to the opening of telephone sales operations in Teesside in 2004 and in Leeds in 2005. Trading results for the year ended 31 December 2005 and for the three months ended 31 March 2006 reflect the cost of increased investment in additional sales and administrative personnel and development of the technology platform. In 2006, Infoserve changed its accounting reference date to 31 March. CURRENT TRADING AND PROSPECTS Turnover for the period since 31 March 2006 has been in line with budget. The Directors believe that, although the Group will record an operating loss in the current financial year, reflecting the high cost of investment in the recruitment and training of additional sales personnel and technology developments, the prospects for the Group are encouraging. REASONS FOR ADMISSION AND USE OF PROCEEDS The Directors believe that Admission will benefit the Group by raising the profile of the Group in the local search market and providing access to additional funding. The net proceeds of the Placing will be used to invest in expanding the sales team and further developing Infoserve's local search technology. DIVIDEND POLICY The Board anticipates that, following Admission, the Group's cash resources will be retained for the continuing development of the Group. The Board will, however, continue to review the Company's dividend policy as the Group develops. BOARD AND MANAGEMENT Directors James Newman (aged 56) James was chairman of Waste Recycling Group plc until its takeover in July 2003. He was deputy chief executive and, prior to that, group finance director of Kelda Group plc from 1998 to 2002. He has been group finance director of other listed companies, including BRIDON plc and Watmoughs (Holdings) plc. He is the non-executive chairman of Straight plc, a non-executive director of Richmond Foods plc, Dignity plc, Scott Wilson Group plc and a governor of Sheffield Hallam University. James is a Chartered Accountant and member of the Association of Corporate Treasurers. David Hood, OBE (aged 58) Technology entrepreneur David Hood is Senior Non-Executive Director of the Company. David founded Shipley-based Pace Micro Technology plc and plotted the company's growth through the 1980s and 1990s until its float in 1996. David also owns and operates MultiFlight Limited, an aircraft charter, training and engineering company based at Leeds Bradford International Airport. Steve Barnes (aged 51) Steve Barnes is Chief Executive Officer of the Company. He has spent over 30 years in sales and marketing roles working for companies such as Cadbury-Schweppes and Quaker Oats Limited and held board positions at Toshiba (UK) Limited and Comet plc. Steve was formerly the Sales and Marketing Director at Pace Micro Technology plc. He joined Infoserve in January 2004. Derek Oliver (aged 45) Derek Oliver is the founder of Infoserve and Operations Director of the Company. Derek has a technical background, held senior roles at Thorn-EMI's television and video group and more recently led Pace Micro Technology Limited's software engineering division. He led the management buyout team at Pace Micro Communications, Shipley, in 1995. He founded Infoserve in October 1999. Andrew Thirkill (aged 47) Andrew Thirkill is a Non-Executive Director of the Company. He is chairman of Age Partnership Limited, a financial services company specialising in the equity release sector, founder chairman and CEO of ATP Advertising and Marketing Limited, a full service agency covering new media and deputy chairman of Harrogate Town AFC Limited. Andrew was previously a director of Ultralase Limited, a provider of laser eye treatment in the UK. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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