Trading Overview
Embargoed 0700hrs GMT, 8 January 2004
SOPHEON PLC
('Sopheon')
TRADING OVERVIEW OF 2003
Sopheon plc, the international provider of solutions that improve the return
from innovation and product development, issues an overview of 2003 and a
trading update for the fourth quarter of 2003.
The beginning of the fourth quarter marked the completion of the restructuring
program initiated at the start of the year. The group's Information Management
divisions in North America and Germany were divested in the summer, focusing
the group on its core software business; subsequent overhead adjustments and
reduction of staff to approximately 60 from a high of 350 in 2001 have brought
the cost base below £0.5m per month before depreciation and amortization
charges. We also extended the maturity of the group's £2.6m convertible loan to
June 2005 and raised £1.5m by way of private equity placing to meet ongoing
working capital requirements. In addition, at the end of the year we concluded
a definitive agreement for a €10 million equity line of credit facility with
GEM Global Yield Fund Limited, to provide reassurance to the market over our
balance sheet position by securing access to a source of equity based funding
over which we retain a substantial degree of control.
Accordingly, the end of December marked the close to a year of progress and
change, as well as disappointments and challenges, for Sopheon in its pursuit
of strategic business objectives. In our third quarter announcement we noted
that whilst the trading environment remained unpredictable, our perception was
that the investment climate in our market was at last beginning to improve. In
the quarter from October through December we set a record in new signings for
our flagship Accolade product development system. This was accompanied by an
encouraging pick-up in interest for our Monitor module, introduced earlier in
the year. Delays in converting three substantial opportunities, from the fourth
quarter to expected closure in the first quarter of 2004, precluded us from
reaching our stated year-end goal to be generating revenues in excess of our
monthly cost base. Nevertheless, in addition to generating revenue from
existing contracts, during the fourth quarter we secured nine Accolade license
deals. Whilst the books have yet to be closed, and all the revenues associated
with these are not expected to fall in 2003, the result is a significant
improvement in sales with December a particularly strong month. In 2003 Sopheon
did business with over 50 customers worldwide, compared to just over 30 in the
previous year, excluding customers of our divested units. This total also
excludes the users of our small-scale laboratory solution in the Netherlands.
Sales cycle times also improved, dropping from 9 months as we entered 2003 to
just over 6 months as the year came to a close.
The market for Accolade continues to show growing acceptance by businesses and
industry analysts alike, of the need for software that addresses automation and
decision-support in product lifecycle management ('PLM'). Accolade-specific
validation has included best-of-breed designations from analyst firms Gartner,
META Group, AMR Research and ARC Research. Accolade was also recently named a
'Technology to Watch' by IT advisory group Collaborative Strategies and
'Product of the Week' by Product Design and Development magazine, further
attesting to market recognition of the significant value and growing market
momentum of our solution.
We are continuing to see the positive impact of our strategy of tailoring our
solutions to the unique process and decision-support needs of vertical industry
segments. For example, during the past year we have captured market share in
the specialty chemicals market, with around a third of our customers in this
sector, including some of the world's leading chemical producers. These provide
an outstanding reference base and a solid foundation for future growth within
this key market segment, and in December we were awarded an enterprise-level
commitment by one of the sector's top-ten companies. . Additional details on
this sale will be shared at a later time.
Another area of progress for Sopheon has been its growing involvement with
partners. These relationships, which entail the provision of complementary
products and services to support our clients' innovation and product
development objectives, have included work we have announced with organizations
such as the Product Development Institute (PDI), Siemens Business Services and
Deloitte Consulting as well as other global partners we are not yet able to
disclose. This is in addition to sales representation in Singapore and Germany,
which have each made contributions to 2003 revenues. We expect the level of
Sopheon partnership activity to rise in 2004 in response to an anticipated
increase in Accolade demand.
One of the principal reasons for Sopheon's confidence in the growth prospects
for its business is the way in which our clients have accepted and adopted
Accolade. Our product development solution continues to enjoy a 100%
satisfaction rate among the organizations that have deployed it, a remarkable
and highly unusual achievement in the software industry. We attribute this
success to our software designers and the quality of the product they have
developed, to our sales team and their effectiveness in ensuring that our
clients have the right expectations, and to our client services team for the
outstanding job they have done in delivering Accolade to each one of our
clients.
In retrospect, 2003 was a very busy time with efforts focused on developing an
emerging market. We expect that the market momentum resulting from industry's
escalating recognition of the strategic importance of product life cycle
management will bring a number of new competitors to our space. In our brief
history, we have competed with a range of suppliers and have been fortunate to
win with consistency. Going forward, we will need to work hard at maintaining a
value proposition that differentiates Sopheon from other solutions providers
and allows us to perpetuate Accolade's impressive historic success rates in
competitive situations.
Sopheon will issue its 2003 preliminary results in due course, consistent with
prior years. The Annual General Meeting is scheduled for 25 June 2004 in
London, with an information meeting for Dutch investors planned for 29 June
2004 in Amsterdam.
Sopheon's Chairman, Barry Mence said:
'It has been fulfilling to see the number of promising opportunities in our
prospect pipeline that converted to sales in the fourth quarter. A number of
substantial, additional opportunities that we expected to convert at the end of
2003 we now look to deliver in the first quarter of this year. Overall, we are
encouraged by the positive direction and momentum of our business, and look
forward to a successful 2004.'
For further information contact:
Barry Mence, Chairman Sopheon plc Tel : + 44 (0) 1483 685 735
Arif Karimjee, CFO
Adam Reynolds Hansard Communications Tel : + 44 (0) 207 245 1100
Ben Simons
+ 44 (0) 771 309 0135
Barbara Jansen Citigate First Financial Tel : + 31 (0) 205 754 010
About Sopheon
Sopheon (LSE:SPE) is an international provider of software and services.
Sopheon's Accolade® product development system automates, gate- or phase-based
product development (PD) processes and provides strategic decision support that
allows companies to improve innovation, cut product development spending waste
and shorten time to market. Sopheon's Monitor software operates as a 'reading
robot' that monitors, filters, analyses and pushes relevant content to
healthcare and engineering professionals to enable effective compliance with
protocols, standards and regulations. Sopheon is listed on the AIM market of
the London Stock Exchange and on the Euronext in the Netherlands. For more
information, please visit www.sopheon.com.
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