17 May 2021
Blue Prism Group plc
('Blue Prism' or 'the Company' or 'the Group')
FIRST HALF TRADING UPDATE AND CUSTOMER DAY
Ahead of the Customer Day to be held later today (AIM: PRSM) the Intelligent Automation software company provides a first half trading update.
During the six month period ended 30 April 2021 the first half bookings were £98m, (up 35% from last year), gross and net retention rates were 98% and 115% respectively, and there was a closing cash position of £126m.
Closing Annual Recurring Revenue ('ARR') was c.£168m on a comparable basis vs. FY20 ARR. Similarly, Remaining Performance Obligations ('backlog') totalled £322m at the end of the period on a comparable basis[1]. During the first half, Blue Prism Cloud represented 22% of new bookings, an increase of 65% on the prior period.
Based on the H1 ARR runrate and currently prevailing foreign exchange ('FX') rates the Group believes FY21 revenue is likely to be towards the lower end of the £170-180m guidance range. We estimate FX has negatively impacted our original guidance by ~£2m. The Group continues to expect an EBITDA loss for the year of c. £25m.
JASON KINGDON, CHAIRMAN & CEO, COMMENTED:
"We continue to refine Blue Prism offerings and define a new tier of intelligent enterprise automation technology. We have prioritized investment in product development. The release of 9 new products is to be followed by a major platform release, which will take us towards programmable infrastructure, with enhanced cloud offerings and enterprise strategic automation as our clear direction.
Our multi-tasking software robots that work directly from human readable process description documents greatly increase the scale, productivity and capacity of our digital robots to carry out end-to-end complex process automations. Our approach moves us away from the current RPA definition towards a greatly enhanced model for robot productivity, along with strategic business outputs and support for strategic digitisations and automation capabilities. We see this deeper theme as central to Blue Prism's refined mission with enterprise models for desktop in scope too.
Evidence from customers, is that the direction is very welcome and very differentiated.
We are still maturing the core business and remain disciplined on spend. We are reviewing our go-to-market model and the product and service formats we offer to better align with the transformation agenda within our clients for digitisation and automation. Whilst acknowledging that Blue Prism development continues, the opportunities and commitments from our global customer base remain robust.
To experience this first-hand I invite you to join us for our Customer Day to meet some of our customers, to meet our new growing leadership team and to hear our technology partners and service partners discuss their views on this increasingly strategic market.
FINANCIAL CALENDAR
Blue Prism Investors: Customer Day 17 May 2021
To register for this event please use the following link: https://events.blueprism.com/investors-customer-day
Half Year Results 17 June 2021
DEFINITIONS:
Annual recurring revenue: Exit run rate of recurring revenue at the last month of the reporting period, annualised
Bookings: The business contracted during the financial year, including new business and renewals.
Remaining performance obligations: The total of invoiced but not yet recognised revenues (deferred revenues) and revenue contracted but not yet invoiced (off-balance sheet revenues). Indicates the outstanding commitments made by customers to the Group, including commitments made prior to 1H21 and demonstrates the minimum future contracted revenue.
Gross retention rate: ARR at the beginning of the period less ARR losses from lost customers divided by ARR at the beginning of the year, annualised
Net retention rate: Measures the net growth in MRR from customers at the beginning of the reporting period
CONTACT DETAILS
For further information please contact:
Blue Prism Group plc
Tom Hull, Head of Investor Relations +44 (0)77 3670 7407
BofA Securities +44 (0)20 7628 1000
James Robertson
Oliver Elias
Investec Bank plc +44 (0)20 7597 5970
Carlton Nelson
Ben Griffiths
Brunswick +44 (0)20 7404 5959
Caroline Daniel
ABOUT BLUE PRISM
Blue Prism is a global leader in intelligent automation for the enterprise, transforming the way work is done. At Blue Prism, we have users across the globe in more than 2,000 businesses, including Fortune 500 and public sector organizations, that are creating value with new ways of working, unlocking efficiencies, and returning millions of hours of work back into their businesses. Our Digital Workforce is smart, secure, scalable and accessible to all; freeing up humans to re-imagine work.
To learn more visit www.blueprism.com and follow us on Twitter @blue_prism and on LinkedIn.
[1] Based on the currency rates as at 31st October 2020. On a reported basis, ARR at 30th April 2021 was £162m and RPO was £311m.
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