Interim Management Statement

RNS Number : 4049S

Sopheon PLC

07 November 2013

 



SOPHEON PLC

("Sopheon" or the "Company")

INTERIM MANAGEMENT STATEMENT

Sopheon plc, the international provider of software and services that improve the financial return from innovation and new product development investments, issues its interim management statement for the period since 1 July 2013 to date.

In our interim report issued at the end of August, we reported an improvement in half year results over our solid 2012 performance, with revenues for the half year of £6.6m (2012: £6.2m) and revenue visibility for 2013 of £10.5m. Visibility today stands at £11.9m compared to £11.7m a year ago.  Meeting our commercial goals will require a strong finish to the year, and we are working to close several sales opportunities from new and existing clients to achieve this objective. As we always emphasize, our revenues are sensitive to the timing and value of individual orders.

We have some exciting activities and events underway in the second half of the year. We are participating in major innovation conferences for the Chemical, Food & Beverage, and Personal Care industries and have also launched a new Chemical industry webinar series. We are also participating in over a dozen other events, webinars and roundtables. Later this month we launch Accolade Release 9.0. This release introduces a new Accolade Roadmapping module, superseding Vision Strategist, an updated release of Idea Lab, and many other valuable additions and enhancements. Our third release in 2013, this reflects a fast pace of development that underpins our market position and is enabled by the Agile methodology we have adopted. Looking further ahead, we are working on a completely new website which will launch in early 2014 and will further enhance our marketing capabilities for reaching and engaging with buyers globally.

During the summer we implemented the first phase of the corporate restructuring. This was implemented through a two-step process involving a 10,000:1 share consolidation followed by a 1:500 share subdivision one week later.  This procedure reduced the number of shares in issue by a ratio of 20, from 145.6 million shares to 7.3 million shares. It also reduced the number of shareholders on the Company's UK share register from approximately 4,000 to just over 200. This does not include shareholders in the Dutch system, which we expected to fall from over 7,000 to under 2,000. As previously noted, we have received indications that the reduction was not correctly processed by certain brokers in the Netherlands. We believe this means the Dutch shareholder count may have reduced to around 5,000. We continue to make appropriate enquiries and representations in the Netherlands, and the board will consider its options in light of the responses received. We are now working on the second phase of our restructuring, the elimination of the accumulated deficit on the profit and loss account, and expect to complete this by the end of the year.

A definition of how visibility is calculated was provided in our half- yearly report published on 21 August 2013. 

For further information contact:

Barry Mence, Chairman	Sopheon plc	+ 44 (0) 1483 685 735
Arif Karimjee, CFO	Sopheon plc	+ 44 (0) 1483 685 735
Charlotte Stranner / Victoria Bates	finnCap	+ 44 (0) 20 7600 1658
Josh Royston / Heather Armstrong	Newgate Threadneedle	+ 44 (0) 20 7653 9842
Claire Verhagen	Citigate First Financial	+ 31 (0) 205 754 010

About Sopheon. Sopheon (LSE: SPE) partners with customers to provide complete Enterprise Innovation Performance solutions including software, expertise, and best-practices to achieve exceptional long-term revenue growth and profitability.  Sopheon's Accolade^® solution provides unique, fully-integrated coverage for the entire innovation management and new product development lifecycle.  For the first time, businesses can access a single source of the truth across strategic innovation planning, roadmapping, idea and concept development, process and project management, portfolio management and resource planning.  Sopheon's solutions have been implemented by over 200 customers with over 60,000 users in over 50 countries. Sopheon is listed on the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange and on the Alternext Exchange in the Netherlands.  For more information, please visit www.sopheon.com

 

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