Alfa Financial Software Reports Strong First Half Performance and Reiterates Full Year Expectations

20 July 2023

Alfa Financial Software Holdings PLC

H1 Trading update

Strong first half, full year expectations reiterated

Alfa Financial Software Holdings PLC ("Alfa" or the "Company"), a leading developer of mission-critical software for the asset finance industry provides this scheduled update on trading for the half year ended 30 June 2023. The half-year results are expected to be announced on Thursday 31 August 2023.

The Board is pleased with the progress made during the first half of the year, across all aspects of the business.  This has been reflected both in a strong financial performance in the period and a robust pipeline looking forward.

Trading

The strong growth we saw in Q1 has continued through Q2.  We have continued to deliver chargeable development days for customers. Last year chargeable customer development was more weighted towards the second half. This year we expect it will be more weighted towards the first half, with our second half this year having a greater focus towards future product roadmap development as we prepare to announce our next major version release - only the sixth in our history. This will further strengthen our software and drive incremental sales in future years. One-off licence payments were slightly up on H1 last year and are still running at a relatively low level and so any incremental sales would be an upside against the current position.

Double digit growth in Subscription revenues has continued along with good growth in Services, benefiting from the strong growth in headcount last year. Cash generation has remained strong.

Software and delivery highlights

We have continued to develop our software in the period.  We have made progress in several eye-catching new areas, such as Alfa Compose and Environmental Accounting, that will be headline items for our next major version release due to be announced in the autumn. This has been accelerated by improvements to the Alfa Development Model, including our Lisbon Smart Hub, which is now fully up and running.

In the second quarter we have seen strong delivery for our customers with six further go-live events, including a go-live in Mexico, a new country for Alfa. This follows on from the eight go-live events in the first quarter. We have also made good progress with starting to replicate the success of our European partner program in the US, with a second US partner now onboard and operational.

Pipeline and Outlook

We are doing paid work with four late-stage prospects, with the initial go-live for one of these prospects expected in the coming months, which illustrates how projects are increasingly moving towards agile implementations with contracting running in parallel to execution.

In addition, we have won another UK Equipment Finance Start customer, which was not already in our late-stage pipeline, and work with them has commenced, demonstrating how these projects are not only quick to implement but also quick to contract.

The strong H1 performance and the strength of the late-stage pipeline means we remain confident of achieving our expectations for the full year. The strength of the Group's intellectual property, aligned with its focused strategy and increasingly robust business model gives the Board confidence in the Company's ability to maintain its market-leading position, financial performance and continued growth.

Andrew Denton, Chief Executive Officer of Alfa, said:

"I am delighted that we have continued to make good progress across all aspects of our business in the first half of 2023 and this has been supported by the strong financial performance. The strength of our order book, our sales execution and our pipeline all give us confidence in our expectations for the full year."

Enquiries

Notes to Editors

Alfa has been delivering software systems and services to the global asset and automotive finance industry since 1990.  Our agile methodologies and specialised knowledge of asset and automotive finance enables the delivery of large software implementations and highly complex business change projects.  With an excellent delivery track record now into its fourth decade, Alfa's experience and performance is unrivalled in the industry.

Alfa Systems, our class-leading technology platform, is at the heart of some of the world's largest asset and automotive finance companies. Alfa Systems supports both retail and corporate business for auto, equipment, wholesale and dealer finance on a multijurisdictional basis, including leases/loans, originations and servicing. A cloud-native, end-to-end solution with integrated workflow and automated processing using business rules, Alfa Systems provides compelling solutions to asset finance companies.

Alfa Systems is currently live in 38 countries.  Alfa has offices in Europe, Australasia and North America.  For more information, visit www.alfasystems.com.

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