Strong trading and increased profits at listed business support firm

SimplyBiz, which provides compliance, technology and business services to financial advisers and financial institutions, has reported revenue of £28.9m in its half-year results for the six months ended 30 June 2020.

This compares with revenue of £29.1m for the first half of last year.

The Huddersfield-based business also recorded pre-tax profits of £4.4m, compared to £2.7m the previous year.

Adjusted EBITDA for the first half of 2020 was £7.4m (H1 2019: £8.0m), while the company reported 30 June 2020 net debt of £25.8m (30 June 2019: £30.1m).

Matt Timmins, joint CEO of The SimplyBiz Group, said: “We are delighted to report strong and resilient trading for H1 2020, demonstrating the robust nature of our business.

“We benefited from an improving quality of our underlying earnings, under-pinned by six full months trading from Defaqto which helped offset a significant reduction in valuation income during the period.

“The quality of our revenues, the resilience of our customers, and the benefits of a stronger digital delivery platform have enabled strong trading during challenging times.

“We have responded quickly and decisively to deliver growth in key strategic areas, whilst improving the quality of our underlying earnings.

“We have accelerated our digital strategy. This data led, digital delivery, will further improve our quality of earnings, margins and cash generation going forward, whilst also improving customer service.”

SimplyBiz says its mortgage valuation business and events programme were significantly impacted by the lockdown, though volumes moderately increased in June.

The firm’s management expects a continued slow recovery in the housing market during the second half of the year.

The business’s report adds: “The company took strong and positive action within the first week of national lockdown to successfully ensure it could fully support its customers and colleagues.

“All services to intermediary customers were moved onto a proprietary digital platform and delivered without disruption.

“Decisive cost control and efficiency improvements were made which will deliver sustained margin benefits in the future.

“Fintech & Research remained resilient and robust over the period with continued product developments to support our future growth.”

Click here to sign up to receive our new South West business news...
Close