Revenue up 20% at First Derivatives

Revenue is up by 20% at £105.6M at Newry based First Derivatives according to their latest interim accounts for the six months ended 31 August 2018.

The company shows a gross profit of £43.9M for the period, up 21% on H1.

FD who have recently opened new premises on Hill Street in Newry now employ over 2400 people worldwide with a sizeable proportion of those based in Newry.

Contributing to this was a strong growth in software revenue, up 21%, with license revenue up 39% driven by increased demand for their Kx technology. FinTech revenue was also up 24% to £82.7m (H1 2018: £66.8m), driven by growth in software revenue and an expansion of services provided to clients. Demand for their managed services and consulting activities also resulted in revenue growth of 19%.

Accelerated investment across the business in R&D, sales and marketing and software delivery in response to growth in the Kx sales pipeline across multiple industries

High-profile new client wins including Fingrid, the Canadian Securities Administrators and, post the period end, BISTel and Survalent

The company has also entered an agreement to acquire the minority shareholdings in Kx Systems, taking 100% ownership by end of June 2019.

Seamus Keating, Chairman of FD, commented: “Our confidence in the growth prospects and the long-term potential of FD continues to increase, underpinned by demand for our Kx technology across multiple industries and our domain knowledge and growing reputation in managed services and consulting. This confidence drove an acceleration of our investment plans in H1, in response to new opportunities across the business. While the benefits from this investment will be received in future periods, the Group has delivered a strong first half.

The pace of major contract wins across the business, together with our high levels of repeat and recurring revenue provide confidence and position the group well to continue achieving strong growth. We expect to deliver revenue and adjusted EBITDA slightly ahead of consensus forecasts* for the year to 28 February 2019.”