City briefs: Animalcare Group; Sumo Group; Clipper Logistics; and more

Jenny Winter

International animal health business, Animalcare Group, says its revenues and earnings for the full year have been ahead of market expectations.

Issuing its unaudited trading update for the 12 months ended 31 December 2020, the York-based business says its trading performance demonstrates resilience in the face of the pandemic.

Despite significant disruption to the animal health market caused by COVID-19, the company’s 2020 revenues were £70.5m (2019: £71.1m), a decline of just 0.7% year-on-year (2.0% decline at CER).

Reflecting Government counter measures and the adjustments made by the Group and veterinary customers over the course of the pandemic, revenues for the six months to the end of December were ahead of the prior year with sales up 3% to £36m (2019: £35m).

The business further reduced its net debt to approximately £13.6m at the end of 2020, largely as a result of the second half improvement in cash conversion.

Animalcare says its improving financial position provides capacity for further investment in business development and pipeline opportunities that support its long-term growth strategy.

Jenny Winter, chief executive officer, said: “Animalcare’s resilience and agility came to the fore in 2020.

“Our trading performance during the continuing COVID-19 threat has further strengthened the Group, enabling us to continue investment in our long-term growth strategy. We asked our colleagues to rise to these challenges and I am proud of what they have delivered.”

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Video games developer Sumo Group says its revenue and adjusted EBITDA for the full year ended 31 December 2020 should be ahead of consensus market expectations, with adjusted EBITDA for the year of at least £16m.

Sheffield-based Sumo says these better than expected results reflect strong performances from Sumo Digital, its latest acquisition, Pipeworks, and higher than anticipated royalty income during the year.

Headcount increased to 1,043 at the year-end, including 139 people at Pipeworks and 40 at Lab42, an increase of 277 on the prior year (31 December 2019: 766).

Carl Cavers, chief executive officer of Sumo Group, said: “The year has been extraordinary in many respects. Sumo Group performed very strongly in an already fast-growing market that was further boosted by the effects of the pandemic.

We’re keen to return to some level of normality in our studios in the various countries as the vaccine roll-out progresses.

“In the meantime, we continue to work well from home and have the ongoing support from our partners to do so.

“We are focused on making great games and continue to operate at good levels of efficiency with no significant delays to production schedules.

“We announced or launched a relatively large number of Client-IP and Own-IP games in 2020, including Spyder, Little Orpheus, Sackboy A Big Adventure and Hood.

“We also completed two great acquisitions, Lab42 and Pipeworks. I was delighted to welcome both of these teams to Sumo Group and am pleased to report that both businesses are fitting in very well and have performed ahead of our expectations.

“We are also pursuing a number of acquisition opportunities and new studio locations, as well as working hard to recruit more talented people to join our teams globally.”

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Leeds-based Clipper Logistics has signed an agreement with Farfetch to provide pan-European e-fulfilment and returns management services from a new facility in Venray, Netherlands.

Farfetch is a global platform for the luxury fashion industry, which sells products from over 1,300 luxury boutiques and brands from around the world on its marketplace.

Clipper will be providing e-fulfilment and returns management services from a new site in the Netherlands and will support all of Farfetch’s European activities from that facility.

The new contract will see operations begin in April 2021 and is for an initial term of five years.

Clipper anticipates it will employ 600 personnel at the site, and the facility will have a stockholding capacity of over two million units of high-end apparel.

This represents a significant extension of Clipper’s trading activities in mainland Europe.

The Group already has eight distribution centres in Germany and Poland, employing over 1,500 workers.

Steve Parkin, executive chairman of Clipper, said “Farfetch is an outstanding company with whom we are proud to have a growing relationship.

“This new contract facilitates our mutual growth aspirations and represents a significant extension of Clipper’s European footprint, one of our key strategic growth areas.”

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ECSC Group, a Bradford-based provider of cyber security services, has recorded Group revenue of £5.7m (2019: £5.9m) in its trading update for the 12 months ended 31 December 2020.

The company also reports adjusted EBITDA profit in excess of £0.4m (2019: break-even), adding that in the same period its Assurance division picked up 90 new clients (2019: 118 new clients).

ECSC had cash of £1.12m at period end (31 December 2019: £0.35m), including £0.42m of COVID-19 related medium-term Government support relating to VAT and PAYE deferral. 

The Group’s bank facility of £0.5m remains unutilised.

Ian Mann, chief executive officer of ECSC, said: “Despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Group made solid progress during the 2020 financial year, and we are particularly pleased to report growing adjusted EBITDA profitability and cash generation.

“The £3m of Group revenue in H2 illustrates the recovery in the Assurance division following the COVID-19 related impact seen in Q2. 

“ECSC is well-positioned in the growing cyber security marketplace, and we are now resuming our organic growth strategy and related recruitment activities. 

“I would like to thank the whole team for an outstanding performance under challenging circumstances.”

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