20-F: Annual and transition report of foreign private issuers pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d)
Published on September 25, 2019
UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549
______________________________________________________
Form 20-F
______________________________________________________
(Mark One)
¨ REGISTRATION STATEMENT PURSUANT TO SECTION 12(b) OR (g) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
OR
x ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 5(d) OF THE SECURITIES ACT OF 1934
For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2019
OR
¨ TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
OR
¨ SHELL COMPANY REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
Date of event requiring this shell company report
Commission file number 001-38607
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
ENDAVA PLC
(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its charter
and translation of Registrant’s name into English)
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
England and Wales |
(Jurisdiction of Incorporation or Organization) |
125 Old Broad Street,
London EC2N 1AR
|
(Address of principal executive offices) |
John Cotterell
Chief Executive Officer
Endava PLC
125 Old Broad Street,
London EC2N 1AR
Tel: +44 20 7367 1000
|
(Name, Telephone, E-mail and/or Facsimile number and Address of Company Contact Person) |
Securities registered or to be registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act.
Title of each class |
Trading Symbol(s) |
Name of each exchange on which registered |
||
American Depositary Shares, each representing the right to receive one Class A ordinary share, nominal value £0.02 per share
|
DAVA |
New York Stock Exchange |
||
Class A ordinary shares, nominal value £0.02 per share*
|
New York Stock Exchange |
* |
Not for trading, but only in connection with the registration of the American Depositary Shares. |
Securities registered or to be registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act. None
Securities for which there is a reporting obligation pursuant to Section 15(d) of the Act. None
Indicate the number of outstanding shares of each of the issuer’s classes of capital or common stock as of the close of the period covered by the annual report.
Ordinary shares, nominal value £0.02 per ordinary share: 54,425,327, as of June 30, 2019. As of June 30, 2019, 18,599,985 Class A, 23,696,345 Class B and 12,128,997 Class C ordinary shares were outstanding.
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. | ||||||
¨ Yes
|
x No
|
|||||
If this report is an annual or transition report, indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. | ||||||
¨ Yes
|
x No
|
|||||
Note – Checking the box above will not relieve any registrant required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 from their obligations under those Sections. | ||||||
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. | ||||||
x Yes
|
¨ No
|
|||||
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). | ||||||
x Yes
|
¨ No
|
|||||
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or an emerging growth company. See definition of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” and "emerging growth company" in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. | ||||||
Large accelerated filer ¨
|
Accelerated filer ¨
|
Non-accelerated filer x
|
Emerging growth company x
|
|||
If an emerging growth company that prepares its financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards† provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ¨
| ||||||
† The term “new or revised financial accounting standard” refers to any update issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board to its Accounting Standards Codification after April 5, 2012. | ||||||
Indicate by check mark which basis of accounting the registrant has used to prepare the financial statements included in this filing: | ||||||
U.S. GAAP ¨
|
International Financial Reporting Standards as issued by the International Financial Reporting Standards Board x
|
Other ¨
|
||||
If “Other” has been checked in response to the previous question, indicate by check mark which financial statement item the registrant has elected to follow. | ||||||
Item 17 ¨
|
Item 18 ¨
|
|||||
If this is an annual report, indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). | ||||||
¨ Yes
|
x No
|
INTRODUCTION
Unless otherwise indicated or the context otherwise requires, all references in this Annual Report on Form 20-F to the terms “Endava,” “Endava Limited,” “Endava plc,” the “Group,” the “Company,” “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to (i) Endava Limited and our wholly-owned subsidiaries for all periods prior to the completion of our corporate reorganization and (ii) Endava plc and our wholly-owned subsidiaries for all periods after the re-registration of Endava Limited as a public limited company.
On July 6, 2018, we re-registered Endava Limited as a public limited company and our name was changed from Endava Limited to Endava plc.
PRESENTATION OF FINANCIAL INFORMATION
Our fiscal year ends on June 30. Our audited consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS, as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board, or IASB. None of our financial statements were prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States, or U.S. GAAP.
Our financial information is presented in British Pounds. For the convenience of the reader, in this Annual Report on Form 20-F, unless otherwise indicated, translations from British Pounds into U.S. dollars were made at the rate of £1.00 to $1.2695, which was the rate in effect on June 30, 2019. Such U.S. dollar amounts are not necessarily indicative of the amounts of U.S. dollars that could actually have been purchased upon exchange of British Pounds at the dates indicated. All references in this Annual Report on Form 20-F to “$” mean U.S. dollars and all references to “£” and “GBP” mean British Pounds.
We have made rounding adjustments to some of the figures included in this Annual Report on Form 20-F. Accordingly, numerical figures shown as totals in some tables may not be an arithmetic aggregation of the figures that preceded them.
i
CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This Annual Report on Form 20-F contains statements that constitute forward-looking statements. Many of the forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 20-F can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” “potential” and “should,” among others.
Forward-looking statements appear in a number of places in this Annual Report on Form 20-F and include, but are not limited to, statements regarding our intent, belief, or current expectations. Forward-looking statements are based on our management’s beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to our management. Such statements are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements due to various important factors, including, but not limited to, those identified under “Risk Factors.” In light of the significant uncertainties in these forward-looking statements, you should not regard these statements as a guarantee by us or any other person that we will achieve our objectives and plans in any specified time frame, or at all.
Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about:
• |
our ability to sustain our revenue growth rate in the future; |
• |
our ability to retain existing clients and attract new clients, including our ability to increase revenue from existing clients and diversify our revenue concentration; |
• |
our ability to attract and retain highly-skilled IT professionals at cost-effective rates; |
• |
our ability to penetrate new industry verticals and geographies and grow our revenue in current industry verticals and geographies; |
• |
our ability to maintain favorable pricing and utilization rates; |
• |
our ability to successfully identify acquisition targets, consummate acquisitions and successfully integrate acquired businesses and personnel; |
• |
the effects of increased competition as well as innovations by new and existing competitors in our market; |
• |
the size of our addressable market and market trends; |
• |
our ability to adapt to technological change and innovate solutions for our clients; |
• |
our plans for growth and future operations, including our ability to manage our growth; |
• |
our expectations of future operating results or financial performance; |
• |
our ability to effectively manage our international operations, including our exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations; and |
• |
our future financial performance, including trends in revenue, cost of sales, gross profit, selling, general and administrative expenses, finance income and expense and taxes. |
Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and we do not undertake any obligation to update them in light of new information or future developments or to release publicly any revisions to these statements in order to reflect later events or circumstances or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
ii
In addition, statements that “we believe” and similar statements reflect our beliefs and opinions on the relevant subject. These statements are based upon information available to us as of the date of this Annual Report on Form 20-F and while we believe such information forms a reasonable basis for such statements, such information may be limited or incomplete, and our statements should not be read to indicate that we have conducted an exhaustive inquiry into, or review of, all relevant information. These statements are inherently uncertain and investors are cautioned not to unduly rely upon these statements.
You should read this Annual Report on Form 20-F and the documents that we reference herein and have filed as exhibits to this Annual Report on Form 20-F, completely and with the understanding that our actual future results may be materially different from what we expect. We qualify all of our forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements.
iii
MARKET AND INDUSTRY DATA
Certain industry data and market data included in this Annual Report on Form 20-F were obtained from independent third-party surveys, market research, publicly available information, reports of governmental agencies, and industry publications and surveys. All of the market data used in this Annual Report on Form 20-F involves a number of assumptions and limitations, and you are cautioned not to give undue weight to such estimates. We believe that the information from these industry publications and surveys included in this Annual Report on Form 20-F is reliable. The industry in which we operate is subject to a high degree of uncertainty and risk due to a variety of factors, including those described in “Risk Factors.” These and other factors could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the estimates made by the independent parties and by us.
iv
PART 1
Item 1. Identity of Directors, Senior Management and Advisers
Not Applicable.
Item2. Offer Statistics and Expected Timetable
Not applicable.
Item 3. Key Information
A. Selected Financial Data
The following tables set forth our selected consolidated financial data for the periods indicated. We have derived the consolidated statement of comprehensive income for the fiscal years ended June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017 and the consolidated balance sheet data as of June 30, 2019 and 2018 from our audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 20-F. We have derived the consolidated balance sheet data as of June 30, 2017 and 2016 from our audited consolidated financial statements not included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 20-F.
In order to provide additional historical financial information, we have included supplemental unaudited consolidated statements of comprehensive income data for the fiscal years ended June 30, 2016 and 2015 and the consolidated balance sheet data as of June 30, 2016 and 2015, which is derived from the consolidated statement of comprehensive income for the fiscal years ended June 30, 2016 and 2015 and the consolidated balance sheet data as of June 30, 2016 and 2015 from our unaudited financial statements, which are not included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 20-F. Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of the results that should be expected for any future period. This data should be read together with, and is qualified in its entirety by reference to, “Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects” as well as our consolidated financial statements and notes thereto included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 20-F.
We maintain our books and records in British Pounds, and we prepare our financial statements in accordance with IFRS as issued by the IASB. We report our financial results in British Pounds.
1
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, |
|||||||||||||||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
2016 |
2015 |
|||||||||||||||
(in thousands, except for share and per share amounts) |
|||||||||||||||||||
Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income: |
|||||||||||||||||||
Revenue |
£ |
287,930 |
£ |
217,613 |
£ |
159,368 |
£ |
115,432 |
£ |
84,107 |
|||||||||
Cost of sales: |
|||||||||||||||||||
Direct cost of sales(1)
|
(174,152 |
) |
(132,775 |
) |
(98,853 |
) |
(68,517 |
) |
(49,717 |
) |
|||||||||
Allocated cost of sales |
(14,951 |
) |
(12,668 |
) |
(9,907 |
) |
(6,529 |
) |
(3,674 |
) |
|||||||||
Total cost of sales |
(189,103 |
) |
(145,443 |
) |
(108,760 |
) |
(75,046 |
) |
(53,391 |
) |
|||||||||
Gross profit |
98,827 |
72,170 |
50,608 |
40,386 |
30,716 |
||||||||||||||
Selling, general and administrative expenses(1)
|
(65,857 |
) |
(46,737 |
) |
(27,551 |
) |
(20,453 |
) |
(13,729 |
) |
|||||||||
Operating profit |
32,970 |
25,433 |
23,057 |
19,933 |
16,987 |
||||||||||||||
Net finance (costs)/income |
(2,870 |
) |
(783 |
) |
(1,357 |
) |
898 |
(1,781 |
) |
||||||||||
Profit before tax |
30,100 |
24,650 |
21,700 |
20,831 |
15,206 |
||||||||||||||
Tax on profit on ordinary activities |
(6,093 |
) |
(5,675 |
) |
(4,868 |
) |
(4,125 |
) |
(1,659 |
) |
|||||||||
Net profit |
£ |
24,007 |
£ |
18,975 |
£ |
16,832 |
£ |
16,706 |
£ |
13,547 |
|||||||||
Earnings per share, basic |
£ |
0.48 |
£ |
0.42 |
£ |
0.37 |
£ |
0.37 |
£ |
0.35 |
|||||||||
Earnings per share, diluted |
£ |
0.44 |
£ |
0.38 |
£ |
0.34 |
£ |
0.34 |
£ |
0.29 |
|||||||||
Weighted average number of shares outstanding, basic |
50,116,979 |
45,100,165 |
45,258,750 |
45,389,210 |
38,482,460 |
||||||||||||||
Weighted average number of shares outstanding, diluted |
55,026,223 |
50,426,216 |
49,292,520 |
49,318,045 |
46,150,255 |
||||||||||||||
Other Financial Data: |
|||||||||||||||||||
Revenue period-over-period growth rate |
32.3 |
% |
36.5 |
% |
38.1 |
% |
37.2 |
% |
31.6 |
% |
|||||||||
Profit before tax margin |
10.5 |
% |
11.3 |
% |
13.6 |
% |
18.0 |
% |
18.1 |
% |
|||||||||
Net cash provided by operating activities |
£ |
35,348 |
£ |
33,984 |
£ |
14,740 |
£ |
10,897 |
£ |
11,107 |
________________
(1) |
Includes share-based compensation expenses as follows: |
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, |
|||||||||||||||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
2016 |
2015 |
|||||||||||||||
(in thousands) |
|||||||||||||||||||
Direct cost of sales |
£ |
5,724 |
£ |
1,006 |
£ |
560 |
£ |
587 |
£ |
115 |
|||||||||
Selling, general and administrative expenses |
6,298 |
499 |
294 |
181 |
65 |
||||||||||||||
Total |
£ |
12,022 |
£ |
1,505 |
£ |
854 |
£ |
768 |
£ |
180 |
As of June 30, |
|||||||||||||||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
2016 |
2015 |
|||||||||||||||
(in thousands) |
|||||||||||||||||||
Consolidated Balance Sheet Data: |
|||||||||||||||||||
Cash and cash equivalents |
£ |
70,172 |
£ |
15,048 |
£ |
23,571 |
£ |
12,947 |
£ |
13,362 |
|||||||||
Working capital (1)
|
82,676 |
(3,042 |
) |
11,028 |
3,180 |
12,038 |
|||||||||||||
Total assets |
222,678 |
151,014 |
106,382 |
72,897 |
57,000 |
||||||||||||||
Total liabilities |
56,349 |
81,515 |
57,662 |
43,104 |
31,014 |
||||||||||||||
Total equity |
166,329 |
69,499 |
48,720 |
29,793 |
25,986 |
(1) |
Working capital is defined as total current assets minus total current liabilities. |
2
Non-IFRS Measures and Other Management Metrics
We regularly monitor a number of financial and operating metrics to evaluate our business, measure our performance, identify trends affecting our business, formulate financial projections and make strategic decisions. Our management metrics may be calculated in a different manner than similarly titled metrics used by other companies.
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, |
|||||||||||||||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
2016 |
2015 |
|||||||||||||||
(pounds in thousands) |
|||||||||||||||||||
Revenue growth rate at constant currency(1)
|
31.1 |
% |
37.2 |
% |
28.5 |
% |
36.6 |
% |
32.6 |
% |
|||||||||
Average number of employees involved in delivery of our services(2)
|
4,902 |
3,957 |
3,181 |
2,336 |
1,645 |
||||||||||||||
Revenue concentration(3)
|
37.7 |
% |
41.5 |
% |
49.1 |
% |
53.7 |
% |
65.5 |
% |
|||||||||
Number of large clients(4)
|
63 |
46 |
34 |
26 |
18 |
||||||||||||||
Adjusted profit before taxes margin(5)
|
18.0 |
% |
15.4 |
% |
15.8 |
% |
19.7 |
% |
19.2 |
% |
|||||||||
Adjusted free cash flow(6)
|
£ |
29,806 |
£ |
28,727 |
£ |
11,186 |
£ |
10,115 |
£ |
9,492 |
(1) |
We monitor our revenue growth rate at constant currency. As the impact of foreign currency exchange rates is highly variable and difficult to predict, we believe revenue growth rate at constant currency allows us to better understand the underlying business trends and performance of our ongoing operations on a period-over-period basis. We calculate revenue growth rate at constant currency by translating revenue from entities reporting in foreign currencies into British Pounds using the comparable foreign currency exchange rates from the prior period. For example, the average rates in effect for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2018 were used to convert revenue for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2019 and the revenue for the comparable prior period ended June 30, 2018, rather than the actual exchange rates in effect during the respective period. Revenue growth rate at constant currency is not a measure calculated in accordance with IFRS. While we believe that revenue growth rate at constant currency provides useful information to investors in understanding and evaluating our results of operations in the same manner as our management, our use of revenue growth rate at constant currency has limitations as an analytical tool, and you should not consider it in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our financial results as reported under IFRS. Further, other companies, including companies in our industry, may report the impact of fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates differently, which may reduce the value of our revenue growth rate at constant currency as a comparative measure. The following table presents a reconciliation of revenue growth rate at constant currency to revenue growth rate, the most directly comparable financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with IFRS, for each of the periods indicated: |
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, |
|||||||||||||||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
2016 |
2015 |
|||||||||||||||
(pounds in thousands) |
|||||||||||||||||||
Revenue |
£ |
287,930 |
£ |
217,613 |
£ |
159,368 |
£ |
115,432 |
£ |
84,107 |
|||||||||
Revenue period-over-period growth rate |
32.3 |
% |
36.5 |
% |
38.1 |
% |
37.2 |
% |
31.6 |
% |
|||||||||
Estimated impact of foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations |
(1.2 |
)% |
0.7 |
% |
(9.6 |
)% |
(0.6 |
)% |
1.0 |
% |
|||||||||
Revenue growth rate at constant currency |
31.1 |
% |
37.2 |
% |
28.5 |
% |
36.6 |
% |
32.6 |
% |
(2) |
We monitor our average number of employees involved in delivery of our services because we believe it gives us visibility to the size of both our revenue-producing base and our most significant cost base, which in turn allows us better understand changes in our utilization rates and gross margins on a period-over-period basis. We calculate average number of employees involved in delivery of our services as the average of our number of full-time employees involved in delivery of our services on the last day of each month in the relevant period. |
(3) |
We monitor our revenue concentration to better understand our dependence on large clients on a period-over-period basis and to monitor our success in diversifying our revenue basis. We define revenue concentration as the percent of our total revenue derived from our 10 largest clients by revenue in each period presented. |
(4) |
We monitor our number of large clients to better understand our progress in winning large contracts on a period-over-period basis. We define number of large clients as the number of clients from whom we generated more than £1.0 million of revenue in the prior 12-month period. |
(5) |
We monitor our adjusted profit before taxes margin, or Adjusted PBT Margin, to better understand our ability to manage operational costs, to evaluate our core operating performance and trends and to develop future operating plans. In particular, we believe that the exclusion of certain expenses in calculating Adjusted PBT Margin facilitates comparisons of our operating performance on a period-over-period basis. Our Adjusted PBT Margin is our Adjusted PBT,which is our profit before taxes adjusted to exclude the impact of share-based compensation expense, amortization of acquired intangible assets, realized and unrealized foreign currency exchange gains and losses, initial public offering expenses incurred, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance readiness expenses, fair value movement of contingent consideration, secondary offering expenses incurred and stamp duty on |
3
transfer of shares (all of which are non-cash other than realized foreign currency exchange gains and losses, initial public offering expenses, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance readiness expenses, secondary offering expenses incurred and stamp duty on transfer of shares), as a percentage of our total revenue. We do not consider these excluded items to be indicative of our core operating performance. Adjusted PBT Margin is not a measure calculated in accordance with IFRS. While we believe that Adjusted PBT Margin provides useful information to investors in understanding and evaluating our results of operations in the same manner as our management, our use of Adjusted PBT Margin has limitations as an analytical tool, and you should not consider it in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our financial results as reported under IFRS. For example, Adjusted PBT Margin does not reflect the potentially dilutive impact of share-based compensation nor does it reflect the potentially significant impact of foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations on our working capital. Further, other companies, including companies in our industry, may adjust their profit differently to capture their operating performance, which may reduce the value of Adjusted PBT Margin as a comparative measure. The following table presents a reconciliation of Adjusted PBT to profit before taxes, the most directly comparable financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with IFRS, for each of the periods indicated:
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, |
|||||||||||||||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
2016 |
2015 |
|||||||||||||||
(in thousands) |
|||||||||||||||||||
Profit before taxes |
£ |
30,100 |
£ |
24,650 |
£ |
21,700 |
£ |
20,831 |
£ |
15,206 |
|||||||||
Share-based compensation expense |
12,022 |
1,505 |
854 |
768 |
180 |
||||||||||||||
Amortization of acquired intangibles assets |
3,472 |
2,653 |
1,715 |
1,165 |
— |
||||||||||||||
Foreign currency exchange (gains) losses net |
(2,945 |
) |
17 |
967 |
(4 |
) |
754 |
||||||||||||
Initial public offering expenses incurred |
1,055 |
4,537 |
— |
— |
— |
||||||||||||||
Sarbanes-Oxley compliance readiness expenses incurred |
1,440 |
106 |
— |
— |
— |
||||||||||||||
Secondary offering expenses incurred |
1,009 |
— |
— |
— |
— |
||||||||||||||
Stamp duty on transfer of shares |
10 |
— |
— |
— |
— |
||||||||||||||
Fair value movement of contingent consideration |
5,805 |
— |
— |
— |
— |
||||||||||||||
Adjusted PBT |
£ |
51,968 |
£ |
33,468 |
£ |
25,236 |
£ |
22,760 |
£ |
16,140 |
(6) |
We monitor our adjusted free cash flow to better understand and evaluate our liquidity position and to develop future operating plans. Our adjusted free cash flow is our net cash provided by operating activities, plus grant received, less purchases of non-current tangible and intangible assets. For a discussion of grant received, see “Operating Results—Basis of Presentation—Cost of Sales.” Adjusted free cash flow is not a measure calculated in accordance with IFRS. While we believe that adjusted free cash flow provides useful information to investors in understanding and evaluating our liquidity position in the same manner as our management, our use of adjusted free cash flow has limitations as an analytical tool, and you should not consider it in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our financial results as reported under IFRS. Further, other companies, including companies in our industry, may adjust their cash flows differently to capture their liquidity, which may reduce the value of free cash flow as a comparative measure. The following table presents a reconciliation of adjusted free cash flow to net cash provided by operating activities, the most directly comparable financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with IFRS, for each of the periods indicated: |
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, |
|||||||||||||||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
2016 |
2015 |
|||||||||||||||
(in thousands) |
|||||||||||||||||||
Net cash provided by operating activities |
£ |
35,348 |
£ |
33,984 |
£ |
14,740 |
£ |
10,897 |
£ |
11,107 |
|||||||||
Grant received |
1,784 |
147 |
2,924 |
1,948 |
468 |
||||||||||||||
Purchases of non-current assets (tangible and intangible) |
(7,326 |
) |
(5,404 |
) |
(6,478 |
) |
(2,730 |
) |
(2,083 |
) |
|||||||||
Adjusted free cash flow |
£ |
29,806 |
£ |
28,727 |
£ |
11,186 |
£ |
10,115 |
£ |
9,492 |
B. Capitalization and Indebtedness
Not applicable.
C. Reasons for the Offer and Use of Proceeds
Not applicable.
4
D. Risk Factors
Our business faces significant risks. You should carefully consider all of the information set forth in this annual report and in our other filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or “SEC”, including the following risk factors which we face and which are faced by our industry. Our business, financial condition or results of operations could be materially adversely affected by any of these risks. This report also contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Our results could materially differ from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, as a result of certain factors including the risks described below and elsewhere in this report and our other SEC filings. See “Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” above.
Risks Related to Our Business and Industry
We may not be able to sustain our revenue growth rate in the future.
We have experienced rapid revenue growth in recent periods. Our revenue increased by 32.3% to £287.9 million in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2019, which was a further increase on the 36.5% increase from £159.4 million in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2017 to £217.6 million in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2018. We may not be able to sustain revenue growth consistent with our recent history or at all. You should not consider our revenue growth in recent periods as indicative of our future performance. As we grow our business, we expect our revenue growth rates to slow in future periods due to a number of factors, which may include slowing demand for our services, increasing competition, decreasing growth of our overall market, our inability to engage and retain a sufficient number of IT professionals or otherwise scale our business, prevailing wages in the markets in which we operate or our failure, for any reason, to capitalize on growth opportunities.
We are dependent on our largest clients.
Historically, a significant percentage of our revenue has come from our existing client base. For example, during the fiscal year ended June 30, 2019, 93.4% of our revenue came from clients from whom we generated revenue during the prior fiscal year. However, the volume of work performed for a specific client is likely to vary from year to year, especially since we generally do not have long-term commitments from our clients and are often not our clients’ exclusive technology services provider. A major client in one year may not provide the same level of revenue for us in any subsequent year. Further, one or more of our significant clients could get acquired and there can be no assurance that the acquirer would choose to use our services in respect of such client to the same degree as previously, if at all. In particular, some of our clients are owned by private equity firms and are therefore inherently more likely to be sold at some point in the future.
In addition, the services we provide to our clients, and the revenue and income from those services, may decline or vary as the type and quantity of services we provide changes over time. In addition, our reliance on any individual client for a significant portion of our revenue may give that client a certain degree of pricing leverage against us when negotiating contracts and terms of service. In order to successfully perform and market our services, we must establish and maintain multi-year close relationships with our clients and develop a thorough understanding of their businesses. Our ability to maintain these close relationships is essential to the growth and profitability of our business. If we fail to maintain these relationships and successfully obtain new engagements from our existing clients, we may not achieve our revenue growth and other financial goals.
During the fiscal years ended June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017, our 10 largest clients accounted for 37.7%, 41.5% and 49.1%of our revenue, respectively. Our largest client for the fiscal years ended June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017, Worldpay (UK) Limited, or, together with Worldpay Group Limited and its consolidated subsidiaries, Worldpay, accounted for 9.8%, 10.8% and 13.0% of our revenue, respectively. We are party to two principal agreements with Worldpay: a master services agreement and a build and operate agreement, the latter of which was terminated on August 31, 2019. Under the master services agreement, Worldpay committed to spend an aggregate of £55.7 million, after giving effect to certain discounts, with us during the period from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2021, with annual discounted commitments ranging from £9.7 million to £12.2 million. Either we or Worldpay may terminate the master services agreement for cause (including material breach by the other party) and Worldpay may terminate the master services agreement if we undergo a change of control or due to regulatory requirements. In addition, Worldpay may
5
terminate the master services agreement for convenience subject to six months prior notice no earlier than July 1, 2021 and payment of 30% of the minimum undiscounted commitment amount for the 12-month period following termination.
Under the build and operate agreement, we created and staffed a captive Romanian subsidiary for Worldpay. Worldpay issued us orders to hire personnel to the captive Romanian subsidiary, and we billed Worldpay for the cost of such personnel throughout the term of the build and operate agreement. We also entered into an option and transfer agreement on November 22, 2016, pursuant to which Worldpay had an option to acquire the captive Romanian subsidiary from us. On June 1, 2019, we entered into a sale and purchase agreement with Worldpay pursuant to which we agreed to sell the captive to Worldpay and to terminate the option and transfer agreement. The captive Romanian subsidiary contributed approximately 3.2% of our total revenue and 32.6% of our total number of employees working on various projects for Worldpay in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2019. Additionally, on August 31, 2019, when the transaction was completed and the build and operate agreement was terminated, the captive Romanian subsidiary employed approximately 146 people. As Worldpay has exercised its option under the option and transfer agreement to acquire the captive Romanian subsidiary, we will no longer receive revenue or incur associated cost from this captive subsidiary. In addition, the exercise of this option may increase the likelihood that Worldpay would cease engaging us for new projects, which could affect our revenue, business, results of operations and financial condition and the market price of our American Depositary Shares, or ADSs. In August 2019, Worldpay was acquired by Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. There can be no assurance that our relationship will not be adversely affected as a result of the contemplated merger.
We generally do not have long-term commitments from our clients, and our clients may terminate engagements before completion or choose not to enter into new engagements with us.
Our clients are generally not obligated for any long-term commitments to us. Our clients can terminate many of our master services agreements and work orders with or without cause, in some cases subject only to 15 days’ prior notice in the case of termination without cause. Although a substantial majority of our revenue is typically generated from clients who also contributed to our revenue during the prior year, our engagements with our clients are typically for projects that are singular in nature. In addition, large and complex projects may involve multiple engagements or stages, and a client may choose not to retain us for additional stages or may cancel or delay additional planned engagements. Therefore, we must seek to obtain new engagements when our current engagements are successfully completed or are terminated as well as maintain relationships with existing clients and secure new clients to maintain and expand our business.
Even if we successfully deliver on contracted services and maintain close relationships with our clients, a number of factors outside of our control could cause the loss of or reduction in business or revenue from our existing clients. These factors include, among other things:
• |
the business or financial condition of that client or the economy generally; |
• |
a change in strategic priorities by that client, resulting in a reduced level of spending on technology services; |
• |
changes in the personnel at our clients who are responsible for procurement of information technology, or IT, services or with whom we primarily interact; |
• |
a demand for price reductions by that client; |
• |
mergers, acquisitions or significant corporate restructurings involving that client; and |
• |
a decision by that client to move work in-house or to one or several of our competitors. |
The loss or diminution in business from any of our major clients could have a material adverse effect on our revenue and results of operations. The ability of our clients to terminate agreements makes our future revenue uncertain. We may not be able to replace any client that elects to terminate or not renew its contract with us, which could materially adversely affect our revenue and thus our results of operations. Further, terminations or delays in engagements may make it difficult to plan our project resource requirements.
6
We must attract and retain highly-skilled IT professionals.
In order to sustain our growth, we must attract and retain a large number of highly-skilled and talented IT professionals. During the fiscal year ended June 30, 2019, we increased our headcount by 935 employees, or 19.4%. Our business is people driven and, accordingly, our success depends upon our ability to attract, develop, motivate, retain and effectively utilize highly-skilled IT professionals in our delivery locations, which are principally located in Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Moldova, Romania and Serbia, which we collectively refer to as Central Europe, and Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay and Venezuela in Latin America. We believe that there is significant competition for technology professionals in the geographic regions in which our delivery centers are located and that such competition is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Increased hiring by technology companies and increasing worldwide competition for skilled technology professionals may lead to a shortage in the availability of suitable personnel in the locations where we operate and hire. Our ability to properly staff projects, maintain and renew existing engagements and win new business depends, in large part, on our ability to recruit, train and retain IT professionals. Failure to hire, train and retain IT professionals in sufficient numbers could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Increases in our current levels of attrition may increase our operating costs and adversely affect our future business prospects.
The technology industry generally experiences a significant rate of turnover of its workforce. There is a limited pool of individuals who have the skills and training needed to help us grow our company. We compete for such talented individuals not only with other companies in our industry but also with companies in other industries, such as software services, engineering services, financial services and technology generally, among others. High attrition rates of IT personnel would increase our hiring and training costs and could have an adverse effect on our ability to complete existing contracts in a timely manner, meet client objectives and expand our business.
Our revenue is dependent on a limited number of industry verticals, and any decrease in demand for technology services in these verticals or our failure to effectively penetrate new verticals could adversely affect our results of operations.
Historically, we have focused on developing industry expertise and deep client relationships in a limited number of industry verticals. As a result, a substantial portion of our revenue has been generated by clients operating in the Payments and Financial Services vertical and the technology, media and telecommunications, or TMT, vertical. Payments and Financial Services and TMT constituted 52.9% and 27.4%, 56.8% and 28.1%, and 57.1% and 30.5% of our revenue, respectively, for the fiscal years ended June 30, 2019, 2018, and 2017, respectively. Our business growth largely depends on continued demand for our services from clients in Payments and Financial Services and TMT, and any slowdown or reversal of the trend to spend on technology services in these verticals could result in a decrease in the demand for our services and materially adversely affect our revenue, financial condition and results of operations.
We have also recently begun expanding our business into other verticals, such as consumer products, healthcare, logistics and retail. However, we have less experience in these verticals and there can be no assurance that we will be successful in penetrating these verticals. There may be competitors in these verticals that may be entrenched and difficult to dislodge. As a result of these and other factors, our efforts to expand our client base may be expensive and may not succeed, and we therefore may be unable to grow our revenue. If we fail to further penetrate our existing industry verticals or expand our client base in new verticals, we may be unable to grow our revenue and our operating results may be harmed.
Other developments in the industries in which we operate may also lead to a decline in the demand for our services, and we may not be able to successfully anticipate and prepare for any such changes. For example, consolidation or acquisitions, particularly involving our clients, may adversely affect our business. Our clients and potential clients may experience rapid changes in their prospects, substantial price competition and pressure on their profitability. This, in turn, may result in increasing pressure on us from clients and potential clients to lower our prices, which could adversely affect our revenue, results of operations and financial condition.
7
Our contracts could be unprofitable.
We perform our services primarily under time-and-materials contracts (where materials costs consist of travel and out-of-pocket expenses). We charge out the services performed by our employees under these contracts at daily or hourly rates that are agreed at the time at which the contract is entered. The rates and other pricing terms negotiated with our clients are highly dependent on our internal forecasts of our operating costs and predictions of increases in those costs influenced by wage inflation and other marketplace factors, as well as the volume of work provided by the client. Our predictions are based on limited data and could turn out to be inaccurate, resulting in contracts that may not be profitable. Typically, we do not have the ability to increase the rates established at the outset of a client project, other than on an annual basis and often subject to caps. Independent of our right to increase our rates on an annual basis, client expectations regarding the anticipated cost of a project may limit our practical ability to increase our rates for ongoing work.
In addition to our time-and-materials contracts, we undertake some engagements on a fixed-price basis and also provide managed services in certain cases. Our pricing in fixed-price and managed service contracts is highly dependent on our assumptions and forecasts about the costs we expect to incur to complete the related project, which are based on limited data and could turn out to be inaccurate. Any failure by us to accurately estimate the resources, including the skills and seniority of our employees, required to complete a fixed-price or managed service contracts on time and on budget or meet a service level on a managed service contract, or any unexpected increase in the cost of our employees assigned to the related project, office space or materials could expose us to risks associated with cost overruns and could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. In addition, any unexpected changes in economic conditions that affect any of the foregoing assumptions and predictions could render contracts that would have been favorable to us when signed unfavorable.
Our profitability could suffer if we are not able to maintain favorable pricing.
Our profitability and operating results are dependent on the rates we are able to charge for our services. Our rates are affected by a number of factors, including:
• |
our clients’ perception of our ability to add value through our services; |
• |
our competitors’ pricing policies; |
• |
bid practices of clients and their use of third-party advisors; |
• |
the ability of large clients to exert pricing pressure; |
• |
employee wage levels and increases in compensation costs; |
• |
employee utilization levels; |
• |
our ability to charge premium prices when justified by market demand or the type of service; and |
• |
general economic conditions. |
If we are not able to maintain favorable pricing for our services, our profitability could suffer.
We must maintain adequate resource utilization rates and productivity levels.
Our profitability and the cost of providing our services are affected by our utilization rates of our employees in our delivery locations. If we are not able to maintain appropriate utilization rates for our employees involved in delivery of our services, our profit margin and our profitability may suffer. Our utilization rates are affected by a number of factors, including:
• |
our ability to promptly transition our employees from completed projects to new assignments and to hire and integrate new employees; |
8
• |
our ability to forecast demand for our services and thereby maintain an appropriate number of employees in each of our delivery locations; |
• |
our ability to deploy employees with appropriate skills and seniority to projects; |
• |
our ability to manage the attrition of our employees; and |
• |
our need to devote time and resources to training, professional development and other activities that cannot be billed to our clients. |
Our revenue could also suffer if we misjudge demand patterns and do not recruit sufficient employees to satisfy demand. Employee shortages could prevent us from completing our contractual commitments in a timely manner and cause us to lose contracts or clients. Further, to the extent that we lack sufficient employees with lower levels of seniority and daily or hourly rates, we may be required to deploy more senior employees with higher rates on projects without the ability to pass such higher rates along to our clients, which could adversely affect our profit margin and profitability.
Recent acquisitions and potential future acquisitions could prove difficult to integrate, disrupt our business, dilute shareholder value and strain our resources.
We have completed five acquisitions (including the acquisition of Velocity Partners LLC, or Velocity Partners, in December 2017) during the previous five fiscal years. In the future, we may acquire additional businesses that we believe could complement or expand our business. Integrating the operations of acquired businesses successfully or otherwise realizing any of the anticipated benefits of acquisitions, including anticipated cost savings and additional revenue opportunities, involves a number of potential challenges. The failure to meet these integration challenges could seriously harm our financial condition and results of operations. Realizing the benefits of acquisitions depends in part on the integration of operations and personnel. These integration activities are complex and time-consuming, and we may encounter unexpected difficulties or incur unexpected costs, including:
• |
our inability to achieve the operating synergies anticipated in the acquisitions; |
• |
diversion of management attention from ongoing business concerns to integration matters; |
• |
consolidating and rationalizing information technology platforms and administrative infrastructures; |
• |
complexities associated with managing the geographic separation of the combined businesses and consolidating multiple physical locations; |
• |
retaining IT professionals and other key employees and achieving minimal unplanned attrition; |
• |
integrating personnel from different corporate cultures while maintaining focus on providing consistent, high quality service; |
• |
demonstrating to our clients and to clients of acquired businesses that the acquisition will not result in adverse changes in client service standards or business focus; |
• |
possible cash flow interruption or loss of revenue as a result of transitional matters; and |
• |
inability to generate sufficient revenue to offset acquisition costs. |
Acquired businesses may have liabilities or adverse operating issues that we fail to discover through due diligence prior to the acquisition. In particular, to the extent that prior owners of any acquired businesses or properties failed to comply with or otherwise violated applicable laws or regulations, or failed to fulfill their contractual obligations to clients, we, as the successor owner, may be financially responsible for these violations and failures and may suffer financial or reputational harm or otherwise be adversely affected. Similarly, our acquisition targets may not have as robust internal controls over financial reporting as would be expected of a public company. Acquisitions also frequently result in the recording of goodwill and other intangible assets which are subject to potential impairment in the future that could harm our financial results. We may also become subject to new regulations as a result of an acquisition, including if we acquire a business serving clients in a regulated industry or acquire a business with clients or operations
9
in a country in which we do not already operate. In addition, if we finance acquisitions by issuing convertible debt or equity securities, our existing shareholders may be diluted, which could affect the market price of our ADSs. As a result, if we fail to properly evaluate acquisitions or investments, we may not achieve the anticipated benefits of any such acquisitions, and we may incur costs in excess of what we anticipate. Acquisitions frequently involve benefits related to the integration of operations of the acquired business. The failure to successfully integrate the operations or otherwise to realize any of the anticipated benefits of the acquisition could seriously harm our results of operations.
We are focused on growing our client base in North America and may not be successful.
We are focused on geographic expansion, particularly in North America. In fiscal years 2019, 2018 and 2017, 27.5%, 21.0% and 16.1793% of our revenue, respectively, came from clients in North America. From fiscal year 2018 to fiscal year 2019, our revenue from clients in North America increased by 73.8% and from fiscal year 2017 to fiscal year 2018, our revenue from clients in North America increased by 75.8%. We have made significant investments to expand in North America, including our acquisition of Velocity Partners in December 2017, which increased our sales presence in North America and added nearshore delivery capacity in Latin America. However, our ability to add new clients will depend on a number of factors, including the market perception of our services, our ability to successfully add nearshore delivery center capacity and pricing, competition and overall economic conditions. If we are unable to retain existing clients and attract new clients in North America, we may be unable to grow our revenue and our business and results of operations could be adversely affected.
We may be unable to effectively manage our rapid growth or achieve anticipated growth, which could place significant strain on our management personnel, systems and resources.
We have experienced rapid growth and significantly expanded our business over the past several years, both organically and through acquisitions. We intend to continue to grow our business in the foreseeable future and to pursue existing and potential market opportunities. We have also increased the size and complexity of the projects that we undertake for our clients and hope to continue being engaged for larger and more complex projects in the future. As we add new delivery sites, introduce new services or enter into new markets, we may face new market, technological and operational risks and challenges with which we are unfamiliar, and we may not be able to mitigate these risks and challenges to successfully grow those services or markets. We may not be able to achieve our anticipated growth or successfully execute large and complex projects, which could materially adversely affect our revenue, results of operations, business and prospects.
Our future growth depends on us successfully recruiting, hiring and training IT professionals, expanding our delivery capabilities, adding effective sales staff and management personnel, adding service offerings, maintaining existing clients and winning new business. Effective management of these and other growth initiatives will require us to continue to improve our infrastructure, execution standards and ability to expand services. As our company grows, and we are required to add more employees and infrastructure to support our growth, we may find it increasingly difficult to maintain our corporate culture. If we fail to maintain a culture that fosters career development, innovation, creativity and teamwork, we could experience difficulty in hiring and retaining IT professionals. Failure to manage growth effectively could have a material adverse effect on the quality of the execution of our engagements, our ability to attract and retain IT professionals and our business, results of operations and financial condition.
We face intense competition.
The market for technology and IT services is intensely competitive, highly fragmented and subject to rapid change and evolving industry standards and we expect competition to intensify. We believe that the principal competitive factors that we face are the ability to innovate; technical expertise and industry knowledge; end-to-end solution offerings; delivery location; price; reputation and track record for high-quality and on-time delivery of work; effective employee recruiting; training and retention; responsiveness to clients’ business needs; scale; and financial stability.
Our primary competitors include next-generation IT service providers, such as Globant S.A. and EPAM Systems; digital agencies and consulting companies, such as Ideo, McKinsey & Company, The Omnicom Group, Sapient Corporation and WPP plc; global consulting and traditional IT services companies, such as Accenture PLC, Capgemini SE, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation and Tata Consultancy Services Limited; and in-house development departments of our clients. Many of our competitors have substantially greater financial, technical and marketing
10
resources and greater name recognition than we do. As a result, they may be able to compete more aggressively on pricing or devote greater resources to the development and promotion of technology and IT services. Companies based in some emerging markets also present significant price competition due to their competitive cost structures and tax advantages.
In addition, there are relatively few barriers to entry into our markets and we have faced, and expect to continue to face, competition from new market entrants. Further, there is a risk that our clients may elect to increase their internal resources to satisfy their services needs as opposed to relying on a third-party service providers, such as us. The technology services industry may also undergo consolidation, which may result in increased competition in our target markets from larger firms that may have substantially greater financial, marketing or technical resources, may be able to respond more quickly to new technologies or processes and changes in client demands, and may be able to devote greater resources to the development, promotion and sale of their services than we can. Increased competition could also result in price reductions, reduced operating margins and loss of our market share. We cannot assure you that we will be able to compete successfully with existing or new competitors or that competitive pressures will not materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
We are dependent on members of our senior management team and other key employees.
Our future success heavily depends upon the continued services of our senior management team, particularly John Cotterell, our Chief Executive Officer, and other key employees. We currently do not maintain key man life insurance for any of the members of our senior management team or other key employees. We also do not have long-term employment contracts with all of our key employees. We are only entitled to six to 12 months’ prior notice if our executive officers intend to terminate their respective employment with us and three months’ prior notice if any of our other senior executives intend to terminate their respective employment with us. If one or more of our senior executives or key employees are unable or unwilling to continue in their present positions, it could disrupt our business operations, and we may not be able to replace them easily, on a timely basis or at all. In addition, competition for senior executives and key employees in our industry is intense, and we may be unable to retain our senior executives and key employees or attract and retain new senior executives and key employees in the future, in which case our business may be severely disrupted.
If any of our senior management team or key employees joins a competitor or forms a competing company, we may lose clients, suppliers, know-how and IT professionals and staff members to them. Also, if any of our sales executives or other sales personnel, who generally maintain close relationships with our clients, joins a competitor or forms a competing company, we may lose clients to that company, and our revenue may be materially adversely affected. Additionally, there could be unauthorized disclosure or use of our technical knowledge, business practices or procedures by such personnel. Any non-competition, non-solicitation or non-disclosure agreements we have with our senior executives or key employees might not provide effective protection to us in light of legal uncertainties associated with the enforceability of such agreements.
Additionally, we have a number of current employees whose equity ownership in our company gives them a substantial amount of personal wealth. As a result, it may be difficult for us to continue to retain and motivate these employees, and this wealth could affect their decisions about whether or not they continue to work for us. Further, although the Class B ordinary shares and Class C ordinary shares that are held by our employees are subject to certain restrictions on disposition for periods of up to five years and two years, respectively, following the completion of our initial public offering in July 2018, sales of our ADSs by our employees in the open market or the perception that such sales may occur may negatively impact the market price of our ADSs. The risk that our employees may sell ADSs in the open market may be made more acute as a result of the fact that we do not anticipate paying dividends (as we did in fiscal year 2015 and fiscal year 2016) for the foreseeable future, meaning open market sales or sales in registered offerings may be our employees’ only means of generating liquidity from their ownership of our securities.
Forecasts of our market may prove to be inaccurate, and even if the markets in which we compete achieve the forecasted growth, there can be no assurance that our business will grow at similar rates, or at all.
Growth forecasts included in this Annual Report on Form 20-F and Financial Statements for the year ended June 30, 2019 relating to our market opportunity and the expected growth in the market for our services are subject to significant uncertainty and are based on assumptions and estimates which may prove to be inaccurate. Even if these
11
markets meet our size estimates and experience the forecasted growth, we may not grow our business at similar rates, or at all. Our growth is subject to many risks and uncertainties, including our success in implementing our business strategy. Accordingly, the forecasts of market growth included in this Annual Report on Form 20-F should not be taken as indicative of our future growth.
Our business will suffer if we are not successful in delivering contracted services.
Our operating results are dependent on our ability to successfully deliver contracted services in a timely manner. We must consistently build, deliver and support complex projects and managed services. Failure to perform or observe any contractual obligations could damage our relationships with our clients and could result in cancellation or non-renewal of a contract. Some of the challenges we face in delivering contracted services to our clients include:
• |
maintaining high-quality control and process execution standards; |
• |
maintaining planned resource utilization rates on a consistent basis; |
• |
maintaining employee productivity and implementing necessary process improvements; |
• |
controlling costs; |
• |
maintaining close client contact and high levels of client satisfaction; |
• |
maintaining physical and data security standards required by our clients; |
• |
recruiting and retaining sufficient numbers of skilled IT professionals; and |
• |
maintaining effective client relationships. |
If we are unable to deliver on contracted services, our relationships with our clients will suffer and we may be unable to obtain new projects. In addition, it could damage our reputation, cause us to lose business, impact our margins and adversely affect our business and results of operations.
Our sales of services, operating results or profitability may experience significant variability and our past results may not be indicative of our future performance.
Our operating results may fluctuate due to a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control. As a result, comparing our operating results on a period-to-period basis may not be meaningful. You should not rely on our past results as an indication of our future performance.
Factors that are likely to cause these variations include:
• |
the number, timing, scope and contractual terms of projects in which we are engaged; |
• |
delays in project commencement or staffing delays due to difficulty in assigning appropriately skilled or experienced professionals; |
• |
the accuracy of estimates on the resources, time and fees required to complete projects and costs incurred in the performance of each project; |
• |
inability to retain employees or maintain employee utilization levels; |
• |
changes in pricing in response to client demand and competitive pressures; |
• |
the business decisions of our clients regarding the use of our services or spending on technology; |
• |
the ability to further grow sales of services from existing clients; |
• |
seasonal trends and the budget and work cycles of our clients; |
• |
delays or difficulties in expanding our operational facilities or infrastructure; |
12
• |
our ability to estimate costs under fixed price or managed service contracts; |
• |
employee wage levels and increases in compensation costs; |
• |
unanticipated contract or project terminations; |
• |
the timing of collection of accounts receivable; |
• |
our ability to manage risk through our contracts; |
• |
the continuing financial stability of our clients; |
• |
changes in our effective tax rate; |
• |
fluctuations in currency exchange rates; and |
• |
general economic conditions. |
As a result of these factors, our operating results may from time to time fall below our estimates or the expectations of public market analysts and investors.
We operate in a rapidly evolving industry, which makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and may increase the risk that we will not continue to be successful.
The technology services industry is competitive and continuously evolving, subject to rapidly changing demands and constant technological developments. As a result, success and performance metrics are difficult to predict and measure in our industry. Because services and technologies are rapidly evolving and each company within the industry can vary greatly in terms of the services it provides, its business model, and its results of operations, it can be difficult to predict how any company’s services, including ours, will be received in the market. Neither our past financial performance nor the past financial performance of any other company in the technology services industry is indicative of how our company will fare financially in the future. Our future profits may vary substantially from those of other companies and those we have achieved in the past, making an investment in our company risky and speculative. If our clients’ demand for our services declines as a result of economic conditions, market factors or shifts in the technology industry, our business would suffer and our results of operations and financial condition would be adversely affected.
We have in the past experienced, and may in the future experience, a long selling and implementation cycle with respect to certain projects that require us to make significant resource commitments prior to realizing revenue for our services.
We have experienced, and may in the future experience, a long selling cycle with respect to certain projects that require significant investment of human resources and time by both our clients and us. Before committing to use our services, potential clients may require us to expend substantial time and resources educating them on the value of our services and our ability to meet their requirements. Therefore, our selling cycle is subject to many risks and delays over which we have little or no control, including our clients’ decision to choose alternatives to our services (such as other technology and IT service providers or in-house resources) and the timing of our clients’ budget cycles and approval processes. If our sales cycle unexpectedly lengthens for one or more projects, it would negatively affect the timing of our revenue and hinder our revenue growth. For certain clients, we may begin work and incur costs prior to executing the contract. A delay in our ability to obtain a signed agreement or other persuasive evidence of an arrangement, or to complete certain contract requirements in a particular quarter, could reduce our revenue in that quarter or render us entirely unable to collect payment for work already performed.
Implementing our services also involves a significant commitment of resources over an extended period of time from both our clients and us. Our clients may experience delays in obtaining internal approvals or delays associated with technology, thereby further delaying the implementation process. Our current and future clients may not be willing or able to invest the time and resources necessary to implement our services, and we may fail to close sales with potential clients to which we have devoted significant time and resources. Any significant failure to generate revenue or delays
13
in recognizing revenue after incurring costs related to our sales or services process could materially adversely affect our business.
If we provide inadequate service or cause disruptions in our clients’ businesses, it could result in significant costs to us, the loss of our clients and damage to our corporate reputation.
Any defects or errors or failure to meet clients’ expectations in the performance of our contracts could result in claims for substantial damages against us. Our contracts generally limit our liability for damages that arise from negligent acts, error, mistakes or omissions in rendering services to our clients. However, we cannot be sure that these contractual provisions will protect us from liability for damages in the event we are sued. In addition, certain liabilities, such as claims of third parties for intellectual property infringement and breaches of data protection and security requirements, for which we may be required to indemnify our clients, could be substantial. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us in amounts greater than those covered by our current insurance policies could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Even if such assertions against us are unsuccessful, we may incur reputational harm and substantial legal fees. In addition, a failure or inability to meet a contractual requirement could seriously damage our corporate reputation and limit our ability to attract new business.
In certain instances, we guarantee clients that we will complete a project by a scheduled date or that we will maintain certain service levels. We are generally not subject to monetary penalties for failing to complete projects by the scheduled date, but may suffer reputational harm and loss of future business if we do not meet our contractual commitments. In addition, if the project experiences a performance problem, we may not be able to recover the additional costs we will incur, which could exceed revenue realized from a project. Under our managed service contracts, we may be required to pay liquidated damages if we are unable to maintain agreed-upon service levels.
Our business depends on a strong brand and corporate reputation.
Since many of our specific client engagements involve highly tailored solutions, our corporate reputation is a significant factor in our clients’ and prospective clients’ determination of whether to engage us. We believe the Endava brand name and our reputation are important corporate assets that help distinguish our services from those of our competitors and also contribute to our efforts to recruit and retain talented IT professionals. However, our corporate reputation is susceptible to damage by actions or statements made by current or former employees or clients, competitors, vendors and adversaries in legal proceedings, as well as members of the investment community and the media. There is a risk that negative information about our company, even if based on false rumor or misunderstanding, could adversely affect our business. In particular, damage to our reputation could be difficult and time-consuming to repair, could make potential or existing clients reluctant to select us for new engagements, resulting in a loss of business, and could adversely affect our employee recruitment and retention efforts. Damage to our reputation could also reduce the value and effectiveness of our Endava brand name and could reduce investor confidence in us and adversely affect our operating results.
If we do not continue to innovate and remain at the forefront of emerging technologies and related market trends, we may lose clients and not remain competitive.
Our success depends on delivering innovative solutions that leverage emerging technologies and emerging market trends to drive increased revenue. Technological advances and innovation are constant in the technology services industry. As a result, we must continue to invest significant resources to stay abreast of technology developments so that we may continue to deliver solutions that our clients will wish to purchase. If we are unable to anticipate technology developments, enhance our existing services or develop and introduce new services to keep pace with such changes and meet changing client needs, we may lose clients and our revenue and results of operations could suffer. Our results of operation would also suffer if our employees are not responsive to the needs of our clients, not able to help clients in driving innovation and not able to help our clients in effectively bringing innovative ideas to market. Our competitors may be able to offer engineering, design and innovation services that are, or that are perceived to be, substantially similar or better than those we offer. This may force us to reduce our daily rates and to expend significant resources in order to remain competitive, which we may be unable to do profitably or at all. Because many of our clients and potential clients regularly contract with other IT service providers, these competitive pressures may be more acute than in other industries.
14
Our cash flows and results of operations may be adversely affected if we are unable to collect on billed and unbilled receivables from clients.
Our business depends on our ability to successfully obtain payment from our clients of the amounts they owe us for work performed. We evaluate the financial condition of our clients and usually bill and collect on relatively short cycles. We maintain provisions against receivables. Actual losses on client balances could differ from those that we currently anticipate and, as a result, we may need to adjust our provisions. We may not accurately assess the creditworthiness of our clients. Macroeconomic conditions, such as a potential credit crisis in the global financial system, could also result in financial difficulties for our clients, including limited access to the credit markets, insolvency or bankruptcy. Such conditions could cause clients to delay payment, request modifications of their payment terms, or default on their payment obligations to us, all of which could increase our receivables balance. Timely collection of fees for client services also depends on our ability to complete our contractual commitments and subsequently bill for and collect our contractual service fees. If we are unable to meet our contractual obligations, we might experience delays in the collection of or be unable to collect our client balances, which would adversely affect our results of operations and could adversely affect our cash flows. In addition, if we experience an increase in the time required to bill and collect for our services, our cash flows could be adversely affected, which in turn could adversely affect our ability to make necessary investments and, therefore, our results of operations.
If we are unable to comply with our security obligations or our computer systems or the computer systems of our clients are or become vulnerable to security breaches, we may face reputational damage and lose clients and revenue.
The services we provide are often critical to our clients’ businesses. Certain of our client contracts require us to comply with security obligations, which could include maintaining network security and backup data, ensuring our network is virus-free, maintaining business continuity planning procedures, and verifying the integrity of employees that work with our clients by conducting background checks. Any failure in a client’s system, whether or not a result of or related to the services we provide, or breach of security relating to the services we provide to the client could damage our reputation or result in a claim for substantial damages against us. Our liability for breaches of data security requirements, for which we may be required to indemnify our clients, may be extensive. Any significant failure of our equipment or systems, or any major disruption to basic infrastructure like power and telecommunications in the locations in which we operate, could impede our ability to provide services to our clients, have a negative impact on our reputation, cause us to lose clients, and adversely affect our results of operations.
In addition, we often have access to or are required to collect and store confidential client and customer data. If any person, including any of our employees or former employees, penetrates our network security, accidentally exposes our data or code, or misappropriates data or code that belongs to us, our clients, or our clients’ customers, we could be subject to significant liability from our clients or from our clients’ customers for breaching contractual confidentiality provisions or privacy laws. Unauthorized disclosure of sensitive or confidential client and customer data, whether through breach of our computer systems, systems failure, loss or theft of confidential information or intellectual property belonging to our clients or our clients’ customers, or otherwise, could damage our reputation, cause us to lose clients and revenue, and result in financial and other potential losses by us.
We may be subject to liability claims if we breach our contracts and our insurance may be inadequate to cover our losses.
We are subject to numerous obligations in our contracts with our clients. Despite the procedures, systems and internal controls we have implemented to comply with our contracts, we may breach these commitments, whether through a weakness in these procedures, systems and internal controls, negligence or the willful act of an employee or contractor. Our insurance policies, including our errors and omissions insurance, may be inadequate to compensate us for the potentially significant losses that may result from claims arising from breaches of our contracts, disruptions in our services, failures or disruptions to our infrastructure, catastrophic events and disasters or otherwise. In addition, such insurance may not be available to us in the future on economically reasonable terms, or at all. Further, our insurance may not cover all claims made against us and defending a suit, regardless of its merit, could be costly and divert management’s attention.
15
Regulatory, legislative or self-regulatory/standard developments regarding privacy and data security matters could adversely affect our ability to conduct our business.
We, along with a significant number of our clients, are subject to laws, rules, regulations and industry standards related to data privacy and cyber security, and restrictions or technological requirements regarding the collection, use, storage, protection, retention or transfer of data. For example, the European Union General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, came into force in May 2018 and contains numerous requirements and changes from existing EU law, including more robust obligations on data processors and data controllers and heavier documentation requirements for data protection compliance programs. Specifically, the GDPR introduced numerous privacy-related changes for companies operating in the EU, including greater control over personal data by data subjects (e.g., the “right to be forgotten”), increased data portability for EU consumers, data breach notification requirements and increased fines. In particular, under the GDPR, fines of up to €20 million or up to 4% of the annual global revenue of the noncompliant company, whichever is greater, could be imposed for violations of certain of the GDPR’s requirements. The GDPR requirements apply not only to third-party transactions, but also to transfers of information between us and our subsidiaries, including employee information.
We are required to comply with the GDPR as a “Data Controller” and a “Data Processor.” In the United States, the rules and regulations to which we may be subject include those promulgated under the authority of the Federal Trade Commission, the Gramm Leach Bliley Act and state cybersecurity and breach notification laws, as well as regulator enforcement positions and expectations. Globally, governments and agencies have adopted and could in the future adopt, modify, apply or enforce laws, policies, regulations, and standards covering user privacy, data security, technologies such as cookies that are used to collect, store and/or process data, marketing online, the use of data to inform marketing, the taxation of products and services, unfair and deceptive practices, and the collection (including the collection of information), use, processing, transfer, storage and/or disclosure of data associated with unique individual internet users. New regulation or legislative actions regarding data privacy and security (together with applicable industry standards) may increase the costs of doing business and could have a material adverse impact on our operations and cash flows.
While we have taken steps to mitigate the impact of the GDPR on us, the efficacy and longevity of these mechanisms remains uncertain. Potential or actual legal proceedings could lead to one or both of these mechanisms being declared invalid. Further, despite our ongoing efforts to bring practices into compliance, we may not be successful either due to various factors within our control, such as limited financial or human resources, or other factors outside our control. It is also possible that local data protection authorities may have different interpretations of the GDPR, leading to potential inconsistencies amongst various EU member states.
Additionally, on June 23, 2016, the United Kingdom held a referendum in which a majority of the eligible members of the electorate voted for the United Kingdom to leave the EU. The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU is commonly referred to as Brexit. Brexit is currently expected to occur on October 31, 2019; however, a further extension may be requested by the United Kingdom. While the Data Protection Act of 2018, which “implements” and complements the GDPR has achieved Royal Assent on May 23, 2018 and is now effective in the United Kingdom, it is still unclear whether transfer of data from the EEA to the United Kingdom will remain lawful under GDPR. We may incur liabilities, expenses, costs, and other operational losses under GDPR after Brexit and applicable EU Member States and the United Kingdom privacy laws in connection with any measures we take to comply with them.
Additionally, California enacted legislation that has been dubbed the first “GDPR-like” law in the United States. Known as the California Consumer Privacy Act, or CCPA, it creates new individual privacy rights for consumers (as that word is broadly defined in the law) and places increased privacy and security obligations on entities handling personal data of consumers or households. When it goes into effect on January 1, 2020, the CCPA will require covered companies to provide new disclosures to California consumers, provide such consumers new ways to opt-out of certain sales of personal information, and allow for a new cause of action for data breaches. Legislators have stated that amendments will be proposed to the CCPA before it goes into effect, but it remains unclear what, if any, modifications will be made to this legislation or how it will be interpreted. As currently written, the CCPA could impact our business activities depending on how it is interpreted.
16
Any failure or perceived failure (including as a result of deficiencies in our policies, procedures, or measures relating to privacy, data protection, marketing, or client communications) by us to comply with laws, regulations, policies, legal or contractual obligations, industry standards, or regulatory guidance relating to privacy or data security, may result in governmental investigations and enforcement actions, litigation, fines and penalties or adverse publicity, and could cause our clients and partners to lose trust in us, which could have an adverse effect on our reputation and business. We expect that there will continue to be new proposed laws, regulations and industry standards relating to privacy, data protection, marketing, consumer communications and information security in the United States, the European Union and other jurisdictions, and we cannot determine the impact such future laws, regulations and standards may have on our business. Future laws, regulations, standards and other obligations or any changed interpretation of existing laws or regulations could impair our ability to develop and market new services and maintain and grow our client base and increase revenue.
Our client relationships, revenue, results of operations and financial condition may be adversely affected if we experience disruptions in our internet infrastructure, telecommunications or IT systems.
Disruptions in telecommunications, system failures, internet infrastructure or computer attacks could damage our reputation and harm our ability to deliver services to our clients, which could result in client dissatisfaction and a loss of business and related reduction of our revenue. We may not be able to consistently maintain active voice and data communications between our various global operations and with our clients due to disruptions in telecommunication networks and power supply, system failures or computer virus attacks. Any significant failure in our ability to communicate could result in a disruption in business, which could hinder our performance and our ability to complete projects on time. Such failure to perform on client contracts could have a material adverse effect on our revenue, business, results of operations and financial condition and the market price of our ADSs.
Our business operations and financial condition could be adversely affected by negative publicity about offshore outsourcing or anti-outsourcing legislation in the countries in which our clients operate.
Concerns that offshore outsourcing has resulted in a loss of jobs and sensitive technologies and information to foreign countries have led to negative publicity concerning outsourcing in some countries. Many organizations and public figures in the United States and Europe have publicly expressed concern about a perceived association between offshore outsourcing IT service providers and the loss of jobs in their home countries. Current or prospective clients may elect to perform services that we offer, or may be discouraged from transferring these services to offshore providers such as ourselves, to avoid any negative perceptions that may be associated with using an offshore provider or for data privacy and security concerns. As a result, our ability to compete effectively with competitors that operate primarily out of facilities located in these countries could be harmed.
Legislation enacted in certain European jurisdictions and any future legislation in Europe or any other country in which we have clients that restricts the performance of services from an offshore location could also materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. For example, legislation enacted in the United Kingdom, based on the 1977 EC Acquired Rights Directive, has been adopted in some form by many European Union countries, and provides that if a company outsources all or part of its business to an IT services provider or changes its current IT services provider, the affected employees of the company or of the previous IT services provider are entitled to become employees of the new IT services provider, generally on the same terms and conditions as their original employment. In addition, dismissals of employees who were employed by the company or the previous IT services provider immediately prior to that transfer are automatically considered unfair dismissals that entitle such employees to compensation. As a result, in order to avoid unfair dismissal claims, we may have to offer, and become liable for, voluntary redundancy payments to the employees of our clients who outsource business to us in the United Kingdom and other European Union countries who have adopted similar laws. This legislation could materially affect our ability to obtain new business from companies in the United Kingdom and European Union and to provide outsourced services to companies in the United Kingdom and European Union in a cost-effective manner.
Certain of our clients require solutions that ensure security given the nature of the content being distributed and associated applicable regulatory requirements. In particular, our U.S. healthcare industry clients may rely on our solutions to protect information in compliance with the requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, the 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, the Final
17
Omnibus Rule of January 25, 2013, and related regulations, which are collectively referred to as HIPAA, and which impose privacy and data security standards that protect individually identifiable health information by limiting the uses and disclosures of individually identifiable health information and requiring that certain data security standards be implemented to protect this information. As a “business associate” to “covered entities” that are subject to HIPAA, such as certain healthcare providers, health plans and healthcare clearinghouses, we also have our own compliance obligations directly under HIPAA and pursuant to the business associate agreements that we are required to enter into with our clients that are HIPAA-covered entities and any vendors we engage that access, use, transmit or store individually identifiable health information in connection with our business operations. Compliance efforts can be expensive and burdensome, and if we fail to comply with our obligations under HIPAA, our required business associate agreements or applicable state data privacy laws and regulations, we could be subject to regulatory investigations and orders, significant fines and penalties, mitigation and breach notification expenses, private litigation and contractual damages, corrective action plans and related regulatory oversight and reputational harm.
Governments and industry organizations may also adopt new laws, regulations or requirements, or make changes to existing laws or regulations, that could impact the demand for, or value of, our services. If we are unable to adapt the solutions we deliver to our clients to changing legal and regulatory standards or other requirements in a timely manner, or if our solutions fail to allow our clients to comply with applicable laws and regulations, our clients may lose confidence in our services and could switch to services offered by our competitors, or threaten or bring legal actions against us.
We may not receive sufficient intellectual property rights from our employees and contractors to comply with our obligations to our clients and we may not be able to prevent unauthorized use of our intellectual property.
Our contracts generally require, and our clients typically expect, that we will assign to them all intellectual property rights associated with the deliverables that we create in connection with our engagements. In order to assign these rights to our clients, we must ensure that our employees and contractors validly assign to us all intellectual property rights that they have in such deliverables. Our policy is to require employees and independent contractors to sign assignment of inventions agreements with us upon commencement of employment or engagement, but there can be no assurance that we will be able to enforce our rights under such agreements. Given that we operate in a variety of jurisdictions with different and evolving legal regimes, particularly in Central Europe and Latin America, we face increased uncertainty regarding whether such agreements will be found to be valid and enforceable by competent courts and whether we will be able to avail ourselves of the remedies provided for by applicable law.
Our success also depends in part on certain methodologies, practices, tools and technical expertise our company utilizes in designing, developing, implementing and maintaining applications and other proprietary intellectual property rights. In order to protect our intellectual property rights, we rely upon a combination of nondisclosure and other contractual arrangements as well as trade secret, copyright and trademark laws. We consider proprietary trade secrets and confidential know-how to be important to our business. However, trade secrets and confidential know-how are difficult to maintain as confidential. To protect this type of information against disclosure or appropriation by competitors, our policy is to require our employees, consultants, contractors and advisors to enter into confidentiality agreements with us. We also seek to preserve the integrity and confidentiality of our data, trade secrets and know-how by maintaining physical security of our premises and physical and electronic security of our information technology systems. Monitoring unauthorized uses and disclosures is difficult, and we do not know whether the steps we have taken to protect our proprietary technologies will be effective. We cannot guarantee that our trade secrets and other proprietary and confidential information will not be disclosed or that competitors will not otherwise gain access to our trade secrets. Current or former employees, consultants, contractors and advisers may unintentionally or willfully disclose our confidential information to competitors, and confidentiality agreements may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of unauthorized disclosure of confidential information. Enforcing a claim that a third party illegally obtained and used trade secrets and/or confidential know-how is expensive, time consuming and unpredictable. The enforceability of confidentiality agreements may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Furthermore, if a competitor lawfully obtained or independently developed any of our trade secrets, we would have no right to prevent such competitor from using that technology or information to compete with us, which could harm our competitive position. If the steps taken to maintain our trade secrets are deemed inadequate, we may have insufficient recourse against third parties for misappropriating the trade secret.
18
We have registered the “Endava” name and logo in the United Kingdom, the United States and certain other countries. We have pending applications for the “Endava” name and logo in other countries; however, we cannot assure you that any future trademark registrations will be issued for pending or future applications or that any registered trademarks will be enforceable or provide adequate protection of our proprietary rights. Our trademarks may also be subject to misappropriation in jurisdictions in which they are not registered.
We may be subject to claims by third parties asserting that companies we have acquired, our employees or we have misappropriated their intellectual property, or claiming ownership of what we regard as our own intellectual property.
We could be subject to claims by third parties that companies we have acquired, our employees or we have misappropriated their intellectual property. Our employees may misappropriate intellectual property from their former employers. Many of our employees were previously employed at our competitors or potential competitors. Some of these employees executed proprietary rights, non-disclosure and non-competition agreements in connection with such previous employment. Although we try to ensure that our employees do not use the proprietary information of others in their work for us, we may be subject to claims that we or these employees have used or disclosed confidential information or intellectual property, including trade secrets or other proprietary information, of any such employee's former employer. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these claims. In addition, we are subject to additional risks as a result of our recent acquisitions and any future acquisitions we may complete. The developers of the technology that we have acquired or may acquire may not have appropriately created, maintained or enforced intellectual property rights in such technology. Indemnification and other rights under acquisition documents may be limited in term and scope and may therefore provide little or no protection from these risks.
If we fail in prosecuting or defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel or sustain damages. Such intellectual property rights could be awarded to a third party. Even if we successfully prosecute or defend against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and distract management.
If we incur any liability for a violation of the intellectual property rights of others, our reputation, business, financial condition and prospects may be adversely affected.
Our success largely depends on our ability to use and develop our technology, tools, code, methodologies and services without infringing the intellectual property rights of third parties, including patents, copyrights, trade secrets and trademarks. We may be subject to litigation involving claims of patent infringement or violation of other intellectual property rights of third parties. Parties making infringement claims may be able to obtain an injunction to prevent us from delivering our services or using technology involving the allegedly infringing intellectual property. Intellectual property litigation is expensive and time-consuming and could divert management’s attention from our business. A successful infringement claim against us, whether with or without merit, could, among others things, require us to pay substantial damages, develop substitute non-infringing technology, or rebrand our name or enter into royalty or license agreements that may not be available on acceptable terms, if at all, and would require us to cease making, licensing or using products that have infringed a third party’s intellectual property rights. Protracted litigation could also result in existing or potential clients deferring or limiting their purchase or use of our services until resolution of such litigation, or could require us to indemnify our clients against infringement claims in certain instances. Any intellectual property claim or litigation, whether we ultimately win or lose, could damage our reputation and materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
In addition, we typically indemnify clients who purchase our services and solutions against potential infringement of intellectual property rights, which subjects us to the risk of indemnification claims. These claims may require us to initiate or defend protracted and costly litigation on behalf of our clients, regardless of the merits of these claims and are often not subject to liability limits or exclusion of consequential, indirect or punitive damages. If any of these claims succeed, we may be forced to pay damages on behalf of our clients, redesign or cease offering our allegedly infringing services or solutions, or obtain licenses for the intellectual property such services or solutions allegedly infringe. If we cannot obtain all necessary licenses on commercially reasonable terms, our clients may stop using our services or solutions.
Further, our current and former employees could challenge our exclusive rights to the software they have developed in the course of their employment. In certain countries in which we operate, an employer is deemed to own the copyright
19
work created by its employees during the course, and within the scope, of their employment, but the employer may be required to satisfy additional legal requirements in order to make further use and dispose of such works. While we believe that we have complied with all such requirements, and have fulfilled all requirements necessary to acquire all rights in software developed by our independent contractors, these requirements are often ambiguously defined and enforced. As a result, we may not be successful in defending against any claim by our current or former employees or independent contractors challenging our exclusive rights over the use and transfer of works those employees or independent contractors created or requesting additional compensation for such works.
We use third-party software, hardware and software-as-a-service, or SaaS, technologies from third parties that may be difficult to replace or that may cause errors or defects in, or failures of, the services or solutions we provide.
We rely on software and hardware from various third parties to deliver our services and solutions, as well as hosted SaaS applications from third parties. If any of these software, hardware or SaaS applications become unavailable due to extended outages, interruptions or because they are no longer available on commercially reasonable terms, it could result in delays in the provisioning of our services until equivalent technology is either developed by us, or, if available, is identified, obtained and integrated, which could increase our expenses or otherwise harm our business. In addition, any errors or defects in or failures of this third-party software, hardware or SaaS applications could result in errors or defects in or failures of our services and solutions, which could harm our business and be costly to correct. Many of these providers attempt to impose limitations on their liability for such errors, defects or failures, and if enforceable, we may have additional liability to our clients or third-party providers that could harm our reputation and increase our operating costs.
We incorporate third-party open source software into our client deliverables and our failure to comply with the terms of the underlying open source software licenses could adversely impact our clients and create potential liability.
Our client deliverables often contain software licensed by third parties under so-called “open source” licenses, including the GNU General Public License, or GPL, the GNU Lesser General Public License, or LGPL, the BSD License, the Apache License and others. From time to time, there have been claims against companies that distribute or use open source software in their products and services, asserting that such open source software infringes the claimants’ intellectual property rights. Our clients could be subject to suits by third parties claiming that what we believe to be licensed open source software infringes such third parties’ intellectual property rights, and we are generally required to indemnify our clients against such claims. Use of open source software may entail greater risks than use of third-party commercial software, as open source licensors generally do not provide warranties or other contractual protections regarding infringement claims or the quality of the code. In addition, certain open source licenses require that source code for software programs that are subject to the license be made available to the public and that any modifications or derivative works to such open source software continue to be licensed under the same terms.
Although we monitor our use of open source software in an effort both to comply with the terms of the applicable open source licenses and to avoid subjecting our client deliverables to conditions we do not intend, the terms of many open source licenses have not been interpreted by courts in relevant jurisdictions, and there is a risk that these licenses could be construed in a way that could impose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our clients’ ability to use the software that we develop for them and operate their businesses as they intend. The terms of certain open source licenses may require us or our clients to release the source code of the software we develop for our clients and to make such software available under the applicable open source licenses. In the event that portions of client deliverables are determined to be subject to an open source license, we or our clients could be required to publicly release the affected portions of source code or re-engineer all, or a portion of, the applicable software. Disclosing our proprietary source code could allow our clients’ competitors to create similar products with lower development effort and time and ultimately could result in a loss of sales for our clients. Any of these events could create liability for us to our clients and damage our reputation, which could have a material adverse effect on our revenue, business, results of operations and financial condition and the market price of our ADSs.
Changes in laws and regulations related to the internet or changes in the internet infrastructure itself may diminish the demand for our services, and could have a negative impact on our business.
The future success of our business depends upon the continued use of the internet as a primary medium for commerce, communication and business applications. Federal, state or foreign government bodies or agencies have in
20
the past adopted, and may in the future adopt, laws or regulations affecting the use of the internet as a commercial medium. Changes in these laws or regulations could adversely affect the demand for our services or require us to modify our solutions in order to comply with these changes. In addition, government agencies or private organizations may begin to impose taxes, fees or other charges for accessing the internet or commerce conducted via the internet. These laws or charges could limit the growth of internet-related commerce or communications generally, resulting in reductions in the demand for technology services such as ours.
In addition, the use of the internet as a business tool could be adversely affected due to delays in the development or adoption of new standards and protocols to handle increased demands of internet activity, security, reliability, cost, ease of use, accessibility, and quality of service. The performance of the internet and its acceptance as a business tool have been adversely affected by “ransomware,” “viruses,” “worms,” “malware,” “phishing attacks,” “data breaches” and similar malicious programs, behavior, and events, and the internet has experienced a variety of outages and other delays as a result of damage to portions of its infrastructure. If the use of the internet is adversely affected by these or any other issues, demand for our services and solutions could suffer.
From time to time, some of our employees spend significant amounts of time at our clients’ facilities, often in foreign jurisdictions, which expose us to certain risks.
Some of our projects require a portion of the work to be undertaken at our clients’ facilities, which are often located outside our employees’ country of residence. The ability of our employees to work in locations around the world may depend on their ability to obtain the required visas and work permits, and this process can be lengthy and difficult. Immigration laws are subject to legislative change, as well as to variations in standards of application and enforcement due to political forces and economic conditions. In addition, we may become subject to taxation in jurisdictions where we would not otherwise be so subject as a result of the amount of time that our employees spend in any such jurisdiction in any given year. While we seek to monitor the number of days that our employees spend in each country to avoid subjecting ourselves to any such taxation, there can be no assurance that we will be successful in these efforts.
We also incur risks relating to our employees and contractors working at our clients’ facilities, including, but not limited to: claims of misconduct, negligence or intentional malfeasance on the part of our employees. Some or all of these claims may lead to litigation and these matters may cause us to incur negative publicity with respect to these alleged problems. It is not possible to predict the outcome of these lawsuits or any other proceeding, and our insurance may not cover all claims that may be asserted against us.
Our business is subject to the risks of earthquakes, fire, power outages, floods and other catastrophic events, and to interruption by manmade problems such as terrorism.
A significant natural disaster, such as an earthquake, fire or a flood, or a significant power outage could have a material adverse impact on our business, operating results and financial condition. In the event we are hindered by any of the events discussed above, our ability to provide our services to clients could be delayed.
In addition, our facilities are vulnerable to damage or interruption from human error, intentional bad acts, pandemics, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, fires, war, terrorist attacks, power losses, hardware failures, systems failures, telecommunications failures and similar events. The occurrence of a natural disaster, power failure or an act of terrorism, vandalism or other misconduct could result in lengthy interruptions in provision of our services and failure to comply with our obligations to our clients. The occurrence of any of the foregoing events could damage our systems and hardware or could cause them to fail completely, and our insurance may not cover such events or may be insufficient to compensate us for the potentially significant losses, including the potential harm to the future growth of our business, that may result from interruptions in the provision of our services to clients as a result of system failures.
All of the aforementioned risks may be exacerbated if our disaster recovery plan proves to be inadequate. To the extent that any of the above results in delayed or reduced sales or increase our cost of sales, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.
21
Any debt we incur may affect our ability to operate our business and secure additional financing in the future.
In December 2017, we entered into a secured Multicurrency Revolving Facility Agreement, or the Facility Agreement, with HSBC Bank PLC, as arranger, HSBC Bank PLC, as security agent, certain subsidiaries party thereto and the financial institutions listed therein. The Facility Agreement provides for a £50.0 million primary revolving credit facility, $12.1 million of line of credit capacity and €9.5 million of guarantee capacity, which we collectively refer to as the Facility. The Facility Agreement also provides for an incremental facility, which may not exceed £40.0 million. We repaid all amounts outstanding under the Facility Agreement in connection with our initial public offering in July 2018; however, we may draw down from the Facility in the future.
The Facility is secured by substantially all of our assets and requires us and any debt instruments we may enter into in the future may require us, to comply with various covenants that limit our ability to, among other things:
• |
dispose of assets; |
• |
complete mergers or acquisitions; |
• |
incur or guarantee indebtedness; |
• |
sell or encumber certain assets; |
• |
pay dividends or make other distributions to holders of our shares; |
• |
make specified investments; |
• |
engage in different lines of business; and |
• |
engage in certain transactions with affiliates. |
Under the terms of the Facility Agreement, we are required to comply with net leverage ratio and interest coverage covenants. Our ability to meet these ratios and covenants can be affected by events beyond our control and we may not meet these ratios and covenants. To the extent we draw down on the Facility, a failure by us to comply with the ratios or covenants contained in the Facility Agreement could result in an event of default, which could adversely affect our ability to respond to changes in our business and manage our operations. Upon the occurrence of an event of default, including the occurrence of a material adverse change, the lenders could elect to declare any amounts outstanding to be due and payable and exercise other remedies as set forth in the Facility Agreement. If any indebtedness under our Facility were to be accelerated, our future financial condition could be materially adversely affected.
We may also incur additional indebtedness under different agreements in the future. The instruments governing such indebtedness could contain provisions that are as, or more, restrictive than our existing debt instruments. If we are unable to repay, refinance or restructure our indebtedness when payment is due, the lenders could proceed against any collateral granted to them to secure such indebtedness or force us into bankruptcy or liquidation.
We may need additional capital, and a failure by us to raise additional capital on terms favorable to us, or at all, could limit our ability to grow our business and develop or enhance our service offerings to respond to market demand or competitive challenges.
We believe that our current cash balances, cash flow from operations and credit facilities should be sufficient to meet our anticipated cash needs for at least the next 12 months. We may, however, require additional cash resources due to changed business conditions or other future developments, including any investments or acquisitions we may decide to pursue. If these resources are insufficient to satisfy our cash requirements, we may seek to sell additional equity or debt securities, draw down on our revolving credit facility or obtain another credit facility. The sale of additional equity securities could result in dilution to our shareholders. The incurrence of indebtedness would result in increased debt service obligations and could require us to agree to operating and financing covenants that would restrict our operations. Our ability to obtain additional capital on acceptable terms is subject to a variety of uncertainties, including investors' perception of, and demand for, securities of IT services companies, conditions in the capital markets in which we may seek to raise funds, our future results of operations and financial condition, and general economic and political
22
conditions. Financing may not be available in amounts or on terms acceptable to us, or at all, and could limit our ability to grow our business and develop or enhance our service offerings to respond to market demand or competitive challenges.
We have significant fixed costs related to lease facilities.
We have made and continue to make significant contractual commitments related to our leased facilities. Our operating lease expense related to land and buildings for the 2019 fiscal year was £9.9 million, and we are contractually committed to £10.9 million in such lease expenses for the 2020 fiscal year. These expenses will have a significant impact on our fixed costs, and if we are unable to grow our business and revenue proportionately, our operating results may be negatively affected.
Our ability to expand our business and procure new contracts or enter into beneficial business arrangements could be affected to the extent we enter into agreements with clients containing non-competition clauses.
We are a party to a small number of agreements with clients that restrict our ability to perform similar services for such clients’ competitors. We may in the future enter into agreements with clients that restrict our ability to accept assignments from, or render similar services to, those clients’ customers, require us to obtain our clients’ prior written consent to provide services to their customers or restrict our ability to compete with our clients, or bid for or accept any assignment for which those clients are bidding or negotiating. These restrictions may hamper our ability to compete for and provide services to other clients in a specific industry in which we have expertise and could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
If our current insurance coverage is or becomes insufficient to protect against losses incurred, our business, results of operations and financial condition may be adversely affected.
We provide technology services that are integral to our clients’ businesses. If we were to default in the provision of any contractually agreed-upon services, our clients could suffer significant damages and make claims against us for those damages. We currently carry £20.0 million in errors and omissions liability coverage for all of the services we provide, subject to lower sub-limits in certain cases. To the extent client damages are deemed recoverable against us in amounts substantially in excess of our insurance coverage, or if our claims for insurance coverage are denied by our insurance carriers for any reason, including reasons beyond our control, there could be a material adverse effect on our revenue, business, results of operations and financial condition.
Risks Related to Our International Operations
The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union may have a negative effect on global economic conditions, financial markets and our business.
As a result of Brexit, and pursuant to Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, the U.K. will cease to be an EU Member State either on the effective date of a withdrawal agreement (entry into such a withdrawal agreement will require approval of the U.K. Parliament, or Parliament) or, failing that, two years following the U.K's notification of its intention to leave the EU or, the Brexit Date, unless the European Council (together with the U.K.) unanimously decides to extend the two year period. On March 29, 2017, the U.K. formally notified the European Council of its intention to leave the EU. Brexit has continued to involve a process of lengthy negotiations between the U.K. and EU Member States to determine the future terms of the U.K’s relationship with the EU. For example, in March 2018, the U.K. reached a provisional agreement or, the Withdrawal Agreement, with the EU on transitional arrangements following the U.K's exit (which are intended to enable the U.K. to remain within the EU single market and customs union for a transitional period through 2020), but this Withdrawal Agreement was not approved by Parliament (despite three votes being held to approve it). Given that no formal withdrawal arrangements have been agreed, there have been several extensions to the Brexit Date and the U.K. has yet to formally leave the EU. On April 11, 2019, the EU granted the U.K. a further extension to the Brexit Date until October 31, 2019.
The current U.K. Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has stated that he is prepared to allow the U.K. to leave the EU with no formal withdrawal agreements in place, or a No-Deal Brexit, if no agreement is reached with the EU by October 31, 2019. On September 9, 2019, a bill (known as the “Benn-Bill”) received royal assent, compelling the U.K. Prime
23
Minister to request from the EU an extension to the Brexit Date to January 31, 2020, if no formal withdrawal agreement has been agreed with the EU by October 19, 2019. In order to circumvent the attempt by Parliament to block a No-Deal Brexit, the U.K. Government put forward a motion to hold a general election on October 15, 2019 (which, if reelected, would allow the current U.K. Prime Minister to repeal the legislation blocking a No-Deal Brexit). However, this motion was rejected by Parliament on September 4, 2019 and again on September 9, 2019. On September 10, 2019, Parliament was prorogued, or suspended, by order of the U.K. Government. The prorogation of Parliament until October 14, 2019 means that a general election will not be possible until late November 2019 at the earliest. The U.K. Government is currently examining ways in which to permit a No-Deal Brexit, notwithstanding the recently enacted legislation to prevent it.
Our principal executive offices are located in the United Kingdom. The lack of clarity over which EU laws and regulations will continue to be implemented in the U.K. after Brexit (in any form) (including financial laws and regulations, tax and free trade agreements, intellectual property rights, data protection laws, supply chain logistics, environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, immigration laws and employment laws) may negatively impact foreign direct investment in the U.K., increase costs, depress economic activity and restrict access to capital.
The uncertainty concerning the U.K’s legal, political and economic relationship with the EU after Brexit may be a source of instability in the international markets, create significant currency fluctuations, and/or otherwise adversely affect trading agreements or similar cross-border cooperation arrangements (whether economic, tax, fiscal, legal, regulatory or otherwise) beyond the Brexit Date.
These developments, or the perception that any of them could occur, have had and may continue to have a significant adverse effect on global economic conditions and the stability of global financial markets, and could significantly reduce global market liquidity and restrict the ability of key market participants to operate in certain financial markets. In particular, they could also lead to a period of considerable uncertainty in relation to the U.K. financial and banking markets, as well as on the regulatory process in Europe. Asset valuations, currency exchange rates and credit ratings may be especially subject to increased market volatility. These developments, or the perception that any of them could occur, may also have a significant effect on our ability to attract and retain employees, including IT professionals and other employees who are important for our business.
If the U.K. and the EU are unable to negotiate acceptable withdrawal terms or if other EU Member States pursue withdrawal, barrier-free access between the U.K. and other EU Member States or among the European Economic Area overall could be diminished or eliminated. The long-term effects of Brexit will depend on any agreements (or lack thereof) between the U.K. and the EU and, in particular, any arrangements for the U.K. to retain access to EU markets either during a transitional period or more permanently.
Such a withdrawal from the EU is unprecedented, and it is unclear how the U.K’s access to the European single market for goods, capital, services and labor within the EU, or single market, and the wider commercial, legal and regulatory environment, will impact our U.K. operations and customers. Our U.K. operations service customers in the U.K. as well as in other countries in the EU and European Economic Area, or EEA, and these operations could be disrupted by Brexit, particularly if there is a change in the U.K’s relationship to the single market. Additionally, there could be new restrictions on travel and immigration that result from Brexit that could impair the ability of our employees to travel as necessary in connection with their duties to us or obtain required immigration authorizations to work for us. The occurrence of any such event could subject us to additional costs and impair our ability to complete projects for our clients, which could adversely affect our operating results and financial condition.
We may also face new regulatory costs and challenges that could have an adverse effect on our operations. Depending on the terms of the U.K’s withdrawal from the EU, the U.K. could lose the benefits of global trade agreements negotiated by the EU on behalf of its members, which may result in increased trade barriers that could make our doing business in the EU and the EEA more difficult. Even prior to any change to the U.K’s relationship with the EU, the announcement of Brexit has created economic uncertainty surrounding the terms of Brexit and its consequences could adversely impact customer confidence, resulting in customers reducing their spending budgets on our solutions, which could adversely affect our business, revenue, financial condition, results of operations and could adversely affect the market price of our ADSs.
24
Fluctuations in currency exchange rates and increased inflation could materially adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.
We have offices located in Argentina, Bulgaria, Colombia, Denmark, Germany, North Macedonia, Moldova, the Netherlands, Romania, Serbia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uruguay and Venezuela. As a result of the international scope of our operations, fluctuations in exchange rates, particularly between the British Pound, our reporting currency, and the Euro and U.S. dollar, may adversely affect us. Currency fluctuations related to Brexit had a significant impact on our financial results for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2019. In the fiscal year ended June 30, 2019, 37.9% of our sales were denominated in the British Pound, 28.0% of our sales were denominated in U.S. dollars, 32.5% were denominated in Euros and the balance were in other currencies. Conversely, during the same time period, 68.0% of our expenses were denominated in Euros (or in currencies that largely follow the Euro, including the RON) or U.S. Dollars. As a result, strengthening of the Euro or U.S. dollar relative to the British Pound presents the most significant risk to us. Any significant fluctuations in currency exchange rates may have a material impact on our business.
In addition, economies in Central European and Latin American countries have periodically experienced high rates of inflation. Periods of higher inflation may slow economic growth in those countries. As a substantial portion of our expenses (excluding currency losses and changes in deferred tax) are denominated in Euros or in currencies that largely follow the Euro, the relative movement of inflation significantly affects our results of operations. Inflation also is likely to increase some of our costs and expenses, including wages, rents, leases and employee benefit payments, which we may not be able to pass on to our clients and, as a result, may reduce our profitability. To the extent inflation causes these costs to increase, such inflation may materially adversely affect our business. Inflationary pressures could also affect our ability to access financial markets and lead to counter-inflationary measures that may harm our financial condition, results of operations or materially adversely affect the market price of our securities.
Our revenue, margins, results of operations and financial condition may be materially adversely affected if general economic conditions in Europe, the United States or the global economy worsen.
We derive a significant portion of our revenue from clients located in Europe and the United States. The technology services industry is particularly sensitive to the economic environment, and tends to decline during general economic downturns. If the U.S. or European economies weaken or slow, pricing for our services may be depressed and our clients may reduce or postpone their technology spending significantly, which may, in turn, lower the demand for our services and negatively affect our revenue and profitability. Brexit and the resulting economic uncertainty could adversely impact our operating results unless and until economic conditions in Europe improve and the prospect of national debt defaults in Europe decline. To the extent that these adverse economic conditions continued or worsened, they would likely have a negative effect on our business. If we are unable to successfully anticipate changing economic and political conditions affecting the markets in which we operate, we may be unable to effectively plan for or respond to those changes, and our results of operations could be adversely affected.
Our international operations involve risks that could increase our expenses, adversely affect our results of operations and require increased time and attention from our management.
As of June 30, 2019, we had 5,754 employees, approximately 53.2% of whom work in nearshore delivery centers in European Union countries. We have operations in a number of countries, including Argentina, Bulgaria, Colombia, Denmark, Germany, North Macedonia, Moldova, the Netherlands, Romania, Serbia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uruguay and Venezuela, and we serve clients across Europe and North America. As a result, we may be subject to risks inherently associated with international operations. Our global operations expose us to numerous and sometimes conflicting legal, tax and regulatory requirements, and violations or unfavorable interpretation by the respective authorities of these regulations could harm our business. Risks associated with international operations include difficulties in enforcing contractual rights, potential difficulties in collecting accounts receivable, the burdens of complying with a wide variety of foreign laws, repatriation of earnings or capital and the risk of asset seizures by foreign governments. In addition, we may face competition in other countries from companies that may have more experience with operations in such countries or with international operations. Such companies may have long-standing or well-established relationships with desired clients, which may put us at a competitive disadvantage. We may also face difficulties integrating new facilities in different countries into our existing operations, as well as integrating employees that we hire in different countries into our existing corporate culture. Our international expansion plans may not be
25
successful and we may not be able to compete effectively in other countries. These factors could impede the success of our international expansion plans and limit our ability to compete effectively in other countries.
Our business, results of operations and financial condition may be adversely affected by the various conflicting legal and regulatory requirements imposed on us by the countries where we operate.
Since we maintain operations and provide services to clients throughout the world, we are subject to numerous, and sometimes conflicting, legal requirements on matters as diverse as import/export controls, content requirements, trade restrictions, tariffs, taxation, sanctions, government affairs, anti-bribery, whistle blowing, internal and disclosure control obligations, data protection and privacy and labor relations. Our failure to comply with these regulations in the conduct of our business could result in fines, penalties, criminal sanctions against us or our officers, disgorgement of profits, prohibitions on doing business, unfavorable publicity, adverse impact on our reputation and allegations by our clients that we have not performed our contractual obligations. Due to the varying degree of development of the legal systems of the countries in which we operate, local laws might be insufficient to defend us and preserve our rights.
We are also subject to risks relating to compliance with a variety of national and local laws including multiple tax regimes, labor laws, employee health safety and wages and benefits laws. We may, from time to time, be subject to litigation or administrative actions resulting from claims against us by current or former employees individually or as part of class actions, including claims of wrongful terminations, discrimination, misclassification or other violations of labor law or other alleged conduct. We may also, from time to time, be subject to litigation resulting from claims against us by third parties, including claims of breach of non-compete and confidentiality provisions of our employees’ former employment agreements with such third parties. Our failure to comply with applicable regulatory requirements could have a material adverse effect on our revenue, business, results of operations and financial condition.
Many commercial laws and regulations in Central Europe and Latin America are relatively new and have been subject to limited interpretation. As a result, their application can be unpredictable. Government authorities have a high degree of discretion in certain countries in which we have operations and at times have exercised their discretion in ways that may be perceived as selective or arbitrary, and sometimes in a manner that is seen as being influenced by political or commercial considerations. These governments also have the power, in certain circumstances, to interfere with the performance of, nullify or terminate contracts. Selective or arbitrary actions have included withdrawal of licenses, sudden and unexpected tax audits, criminal prosecutions and civil actions. Federal and local government entities have also used common defects in documentation as pretexts for court claims and other demands to invalidate and/or to void transactions, apparently for political purposes. In this environment, our competitors could receive preferential treatment from the government, potentially giving them a competitive advantage. Selective or arbitrary government action could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
In addition, due to the current political uncertainty in the United Kingdom surrounding Brexit, there is an increased possibility of a general election in the near-term, and, accordingly, a possible change in government. Any new government may choose to impose more stringent regulatory requirements on businesses in the United Kingdom, including by increasing direct or indirect taxes payable by corporations on revenue, profit or dividends. For example, the opposition labour party has proposed a set of policies that it would seek to implement if it won a general election, including requiring 10% of the shares in all UK companies with more than 250 employees to be owned by inclusive ownership funds. Any significant change in government policy in the United Kingdom could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations, and/or have a material adverse effect on the Company’s shareholders and ADS holders and may deter prospective investors from investing in our securities.
Changes and uncertainties in the tax system in the countries in which we have operations, could materially adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.
We conduct business globally and file income tax returns in multiple jurisdictions. Our consolidated effective income tax rate could be materially adversely affected by several factors, including: changing tax laws, regulations and treaties, or the interpretation thereof; tax policy initiatives and reforms under consideration (such as those related to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development’s, or OECD, Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, or BEPS, Project, the European Commission’s state aid investigations and other initiatives); the practices of tax authorities in jurisdictions in which we operate; the resolution of issues arising from tax audits or examinations and any related
26
interest or penalties. Such changes may include (but are not limited to) the taxation of operating income, investment income, dividends received or (in the specific context of withholding tax) dividends paid.
In particular, there have been significant changes to the taxation systems in Central European countries in recent years as the authorities have gradually replaced or introduced new legislation regulating the application of major taxes such as corporate income tax, VAT, corporate property tax, personal income taxes and payroll taxes.
The U.S. government has also enacted comprehensive tax legislation that includes significant changes to the taxation of business entities. These changes include, among others, a permanent reduction to the U.S. federal corporate income tax rate. Notwithstanding the reduction in the corporate income tax rate, the overall impact of this tax reform is uncertain, and our business and financial condition could be adversely affected. This Annual Report on Form 20-F does not discuss any such tax legislation or the manner in which it might affect holders of our ADSs.
We are unable to predict what tax reforms may be proposed or enacted in the future or what effect such changes would have on our business, but such changes, to the extent they are brought into tax legislation, regulations, policies or practices in jurisdictions in which we operate, could increase the estimated tax liability that we have expensed to date and paid or accrued on our balance sheets, and otherwise affect our financial position, future results of operations, cash flows in a particular period and overall or effective tax rates in the future in countries where we have operations, reduce post-tax returns to our shareholders and increase the complexity, burden and cost of tax compliance.
Tax authorities may disagree with our positions and conclusions regarding certain tax positions, or may apply existing rules in an arbitrary or unforeseen manner, resulting in unanticipated costs, taxes or non-realization of expected benefits.
A tax authority may disagree with tax positions that we have taken, which could result in increased tax liabilities. For example, Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, or HMRC, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service or another tax authority could challenge our allocation of income by tax jurisdiction and the amounts paid between our affiliated companies pursuant to our intercompany arrangements and transfer pricing policies, including methodologies for valuing developed technology and amounts paid with respect to our intellectual property development. Similarly, a tax authority could assert that we are subject to tax in a jurisdiction where we believe we have not established a taxable connection, often referred to as a “permanent establishment” under international tax treaties, and such an assertion, if successful, could increase our expected tax liability in one or more jurisdictions. In particular, tax authorities in Central European countries have been aggressive in their interpretation of tax laws and their many ambiguities, as well as in their enforcement and collection activities.
For example, a tax authority may take the position that material income tax liabilities, interest and penalties are payable by us, where there has been a technical violation of contradictory laws and regulations that are relatively new and have not been subject to extensive review or interpretation, in which case we expect that we might contest such assessment. High-profile companies can be particularly vulnerable to aggressive application of unclear requirements. Many companies must negotiate their tax bills with tax inspectors who may demand higher taxes than applicable law appears to provide. Contesting such an assessment may be lengthy and costly and if we were unsuccessful in disputing the assessment, the implications could increase our anticipated effective tax rate, where applicable.
We do not anticipate being treated as a passive foreign investment company, or PFIC, for U.S. federal income tax purposes for the current taxable year, but this conclusion is a factual determination that is made annually and thus may be subject to change. If we were to qualify as a PFIC, this could result in adverse U.S. tax consequences to certain U.S. holders.
Generally, if, for any taxable year, at least 75% of our gross income is passive income, or on average at least 50% of the value of our assets is attributable to assets that produce passive income or are held for the production of passive income, including cash, we would be characterized as a PFIC for U.S. federal income tax purposes. For purposes of these tests, passive income generally includes dividends, interest, and gains from the sale or exchange of investment property and rents and royalties other than rents and royalties which are received from unrelated parties in connection with the active conduct of a trade or business. Our status as a PFIC depends on the composition of our income and the composition and value of our assets (for which purpose the total value of our assets may be determined in part by the market value of our ADSs representing Class A ordinary shares, which are subject to change) from time to time. If we
27
are characterized as a PFIC, U.S. holders of our ADSs may suffer adverse U.S. tax consequences, including having gains realized on the sale of our ADSs treated as ordinary income, rather than capital gain, the loss of the preferential rate applicable to dividends received on our ADSs by individuals who are U.S. holders, and having interest charges apply to distributions by us and the proceeds of sales of ADSs.
Although PFIC status is determined on an annual basis and generally cannot be determined until the end of the taxable year, based on the nature of our current and expected income and the current and expected value and composition of our assets, we believe we were not a PFIC for our 2019 tax year and we do not expect to be a PFIC for our current taxable year. However, our status as a PFIC is a fact-intensive determination made on an annual basis, and we cannot provide any assurances regarding our PFIC status for the current, prior or future taxable years. See “Taxation—U.S. Federal Income Tax Considerations for U.S. Holders—Passive Foreign Investment Company Rules” for a further discussion of the PFIC rules.
Emerging markets are subject to greater risks than more developed markets, and financial turmoil in any emerging market could disrupt our business.
Central European and Latin American countries are generally considered to be emerging markets, which are subject to rapid change and greater legal, economic and political risks than more established markets. Financial problems or an increase in the perceived risks associated with investing in emerging economies could dampen foreign investment in Central Europe and Latin America and adversely affect the economy of the region. Political instability could result in a worsening overall economic situation, including capital flight and slowdown of investment and business activity. Current and future changes in governments of the countries in which we have or develop operations, as well as major policy shifts or lack of consensus between various branches of the government and powerful economic groups, could lead to political instability and disrupt or reverse political, economic and regulatory reforms, which could materially adversely affect our business and operations in those countries. In addition, political and economic relations between certain of the countries in which we operate are complex, and recent conflicts have arisen between certain of their governments. Political, ethnic, religious, historical and other differences have, on occasion, given rise to tensions and, in certain cases, military conflicts among Central European or Latin American countries which can halt normal economic activity and disrupt the economies of neighboring regions. The emergence of new or escalated tensions in Central European or Latin American countries could further exacerbate tensions between such countries and the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union, which may have a negative effect on their economy, our ability to develop or maintain our operations in those countries and our ability to attract and retain employees, any of which could materially adversely affect our business and operations.
In addition, banking and other financial systems in certain countries in which we have operations are less developed and regulated than in some more developed markets, and legislation relating to banks and bank accounts is subject to varying interpretations and inconsistent application. Banks in these regions often do not meet the banking standards of more developed markets, and the transparency of the banking sector lags behind international standards. Furthermore, in certain countries in which we operate, bank deposits made by corporate entities generally either are not insured or are insured only to specified limits. As a result, the banking sector remains subject to periodic instability. Another banking crisis, or the bankruptcy or insolvency of banks through which we receive or with which we hold funds may result in the loss of our deposits or adversely affect our ability to complete banking transactions in certain countries in which we have operations, which could materially adversely affect our business and financial condition.
Wage inflation and other compensation expense for our IT professionals could adversely affect our financial results.
Wage costs for IT professionals in Central European and Latin American countries are lower than comparable wage costs in more developed countries. However, wage costs in the technology services industry in these countries may increase at a faster rate than in the past and wage inflation for the IT industry may be higher than overall wage inflation within these countries. We may need to increase the levels of employee compensation more rapidly than in the past to remain competitive, and we may not be able to pass on these increased costs to our clients. Unless we are able to continue to increase the efficiency and productivity of our employees as well as the prices we can charge for our services, wage inflation may materially adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.
28
We are subject to the U.K. Bribery Act, the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other anti-corruption laws, as well as export control laws, import and customs laws, trade and economic sanctions laws and other laws governing our operations.
Our operations are subject to anti-corruption laws, including the U.K. Bribery Act 2010, or the Bribery Act, the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended, or the FCPA, the U.S. domestic bribery statute contained in 18 U.S.C. §201, the U.S. Travel Act, and other anti-corruption laws that apply in countries where we do business. The Bribery Act, the FCPA and these other laws generally prohibit us and our employees and intermediaries from authorizing, promising, offering, or providing, directly or indirectly, improper or prohibited payments, or anything else of value, to government officials or other persons to obtain or retain business or gain some other business advantage. Under the Bribery Act, we may also be liable for failing to prevent a person associated with us from committing a bribery offense. We operate in a number of jurisdictions that pose a high risk of potential Bribery Act or FCPA violations. In addition, we cannot predict the nature, scope or effect of future regulatory requirements to which our international operations might be subject or the manner in which existing laws might be administered or interpreted.
We are also subject to other laws and regulations governing our international operations, including regulations administered by the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States, and authorities in the European Union, including applicable export control regulations, economic sanctions and embargoes on certain countries and persons, anti-money laundering laws, import and customs requirements and currency exchange regulations, collectively referred to as the Trade Control laws. We may not be completely effective in ensuring our compliance with all such applicable laws, which could result in our being subject to criminal and civil penalties, disgorgement and other sanctions and remedial measures, and legal expenses. Likewise, any investigation of any potential violations of such laws by United Kingdom, United States or other authorities could also have an adverse impact on our reputation, our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Risks Related to Our ADSs and the Trading of Our ADSs
Our share price may be volatile or may decline regardless of our operating performance.
The trading price of our ADSs has fluctuated, and is likely to continue to fluctuate. Since our ADSs were sold at our initial public offering in July 2018 at a price of $20.00 per share, the price per ADS has ranged as low as $21.13 and as high as $43.93 through August 31, 2019. The trading price of our ADSs depends on a number of factors, including those described in this “Risk Factors” section, many of which are beyond our control and may not be related to our operating performance, including:
• |
actual or anticipated fluctuations in our financial condition and operating results; |
• |
variance in our financial performance from expectations of securities analysts; |
• |
changes in the prices of our services; |
• |
changes in our projected operating and actual financial results; |
• |
changes in laws or regulations applicable to our business; |
• |
announcements by us or our competitors of significant business developments, acquisitions or new offerings; |
• |
our involvement in any litigation; |
• |
our sale of our ADSs or other securities in the future; |
• |
changes in senior management or key personnel; |
• |
the trading volume of our ADSs; |
• |
changes in the anticipated future size and growth rate of our market; and |
• |
general economic, regulatory, political and market conditions. |
29
Stock markets frequently experience price and volume fluctuations that affect the market prices of equity securities of many companies. These fluctuations have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. Broad market and industry fluctuations, as well as general economic, political, regulatory and market conditions, may negatively impact the market price of our ADSs. In the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their securities have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future, which could result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention.
An active public trading market for our ADSs may not be sustained.
Prior to the completion of our initial public offering, no public market existed for our securities. An active public trading market for our ADSs may not be sustained. The lack of an active market may impair your ability to sell your ADSs at the time you wish to sell them or at a price that you consider reasonable. The lack of an active market may also reduce the fair value of your ADSs. An inactive market may also impair our ability to raise capital to continue to fund operations by selling ADSs and may impair our ability to acquire other companies or technologies by using our ADSs as consideration.
We may invest or spend the remaining proceeds from our initial public offering in ways with which you may not agree or in ways which may not yield a return.
We anticipate that the remaining net proceeds from our initial public offering will be used for working capital and other general corporate purposes. We may also use a portion of the net proceeds to acquire complementary businesses, products or technologies. However, we do not have any agreements or commitments for any acquisitions at this time. Our management will have considerable discretion in the application of the remaining net proceeds, and you will not have the opportunity to assess whether the proceeds are being used effectively. The remaining net proceeds may be invested with a view towards long-term benefits for our shareholders and this may not increase our operating results or market value. The failure by our management to apply these funds effectively may adversely affect the return on your investment.
Future sales of our ADSs by existing shareholders could cause the market price of our ADSs to decline.
Sales of a substantial number of our ADSs in the public market by our existing shareholders, or the perception that these sales might occur, could depress the market price of our ADSs and could impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional equity securities. We are unable to predict the effect that such sales may have on the prevailing market price of our ADSs.
As of June 30, 2019, we had 54,425,327 outstanding ordinary shares, which are not subject to lock-ups or selling restrictions. Our articles of association provide that (i) each holder of Class B ordinary shares may not dispose of (a) more than 25% of the Class B ordinary shares held by such holder as of July 26, 2018 in the 18-month period following July 26, 2018 (including by conversion to Class A ordinary shares), (b) more than 40% of the Class B ordinary shares held by such holder as of July 26, 2018 in the three-year period following July 26, 2018 (including by conversion to Class A ordinary shares) and (c) more than 60% of the Class B ordinary shares held by such holder as of July 26, 2018 in the five-year period following July 26, 2018 (including by conversion to Class A ordinary shares) and (ii) each holder of Class C ordinary shares may not dispose of more than 25% of the Class C ordinary shares held by such holder as of July 26, 2018 in the 18-month period following July 26, 2018 (including by conversion to Class A ordinary shares). Further, as previously disclosed, we may cause the Employee Benefit Trust to sell ADSs representing up to 500,000 Class A ordinary shares and to use the net proceeds from such sales to pay discretionary cash bonuses to our employees. We may also request that the Employee Benefit Trust sell all or part of any ADSs representing additional Class A ordinary shares held by the Employee Benefit Trust, which are (i) not needed to satisfy outstanding Joint Share Ownership Plan, or JSOP, awards (currently approximately 485,000 shares) and (ii) remaining after satisfying certain 2015 Long Term Incentive Plan, or the 2015 Plan, awards, and use all or a portion of the net proceeds from such sales to pay discretionary cash bonuses to our employees and/or repay any other Employee Benefit Trust liabilities.
In addition, as of June 30, 2019 there were outstanding 3,464,000 Class A ordinary shares issuable by us upon exercise of outstanding share options or the vesting of restricted share units, or RSUs. We have registered all of the ADSs representing Class A ordinary shares issuable upon exercise of outstanding options or the vesting of RSUs, and upon exercise of settlement of any options or other equity incentives we may grant in the future, for public resale under
30
the Securities Act. Accordingly, these shares will be able to be freely sold in the public market upon issuance as permitted by any applicable vesting requirements, subject to restrictions on sales of our shares by affiliates.
Shareholder protections found in provisions under the U.K. City Code on Takeovers and Mergers, or the Takeover Code, will not apply if our place of management and control is considered to change to outside the United Kingdom.
The Takeover Code applies to all offers for public limited companies incorporated in England and Wales which have their registered offices in the United Kingdom and which are considered by the Panel on Takeovers and Mergers, or the Takeover Panel, to have their place of central management and control in the United Kingdom.
On July 6, 2018, we re-registered as a public limited company incorporated in England and Wales. Our place of central management and control is, and is expected to continue to be, in the United Kingdom. Accordingly, we are subject to the Takeover Code and, as a result, our shareholders are entitled to the benefit of the various protections provided under the Takeover Code. The Takeover Code provides a framework within which takeovers of companies are regulated and conducted. If, at the time of a takeover offer, the Takeover Panel determines that we do not have our place of central management and control in the United Kingdom, then the Takeover Code would not apply to us and our shareholders would not be entitled to the benefit of the various protections that the Takeover Code affords. In particular, the rules regarding mandatory takeover bids described below would not apply. The following is a brief summary of some of the most important rules of the Takeover Code:
• |
When any person acquires, whether by a series of transactions over a period of time or not, an interest in shares which (taken together with shares already held by that person and an interest in shares held or acquired by persons acting in concert with him or her) carry 30% or more of the voting rights of a company that is subject to the Takeover Code, that person is generally required to make a mandatory offer to all the holders of any class of equity share capital or other class of transferable securities carrying voting rights in that company to acquire the balance of their interests in the company. |
• |
When any person who, together with persons acting in concert with him or her, is interested in shares representing not less than 30% but does not hold more than 50% of the voting rights of a company that is subject to the Takeover Code, and such person, or any person acting in concert with him or her, acquires an additional interest in shares which increases the percentage of shares carrying voting rights in which he or she is interested, then such person is generally required to make a mandatory offer to all the holders of any class of equity share capital or other class of transferable securities carrying voting rights of that company to acquire the balance of their interests in the company. |
• |
A mandatory offer triggered in the circumstances described in the two paragraphs above must be in cash (or be accompanied by a cash alternative) and at not less than the highest price paid within the preceding 12 months to acquire any interest in shares in the company by the person required to make the offer or any person acting in concert with him or her. |
• |
In relation to a voluntary offer (i.e. any offer which is not a mandatory offer), when interests in shares representing 10% or more of the shares of a class have been acquired for cash by an offeror (i.e., a bidder) and any person acting in concert with it in the offer period and the previous 12 months, the offer must be in cash or include a cash alternative for all shareholders of that class at not less than the highest price paid for any interest in shares of that class by the offeror and by any person acting in concert with it in that period. Further, if an offeror acquires for cash any interest in shares during the offer period, a cash alternative must be made available at not less than the highest price paid for any interest in the shares of that class. |
• |
If the offeror or any person acting in concert with it acquires an interest in shares in the offeree company (i.e., the target) at a price higher than the value of the offer, the offer must be increased to not less than the highest price paid for the interest in shares so acquired. |
• |
The offeree company must obtain competent advice as to whether the terms of any offer are fair and reasonable and the substance of such advice must be made known to all the shareholders, together with the opinion of the board of directors of the offeree company. |
31
• |
Special deals with favorable conditions for selected shareholders are not permitted. |
• |
All shareholders must be given the same information. |
• |
Each document published in connection with an offer by or on behalf of the offeror or offeree must state that the directors of the offeror or the offeree, as the case may be, accept responsibility for the information contained therein. |
• |
Profit forecasts, quantified financial benefits statements and asset valuations must be made to specified standards and must be reported on by professional advisers. |
• |
Misleading, inaccurate or unsubstantiated statements made in documents or to the media must be publicly corrected immediately. |
• |
Actions during the course of an offer by the offeree company, which might frustrate the offer, are generally prohibited unless shareholders approve these plans. |
• |
Stringent and detailed requirements are laid down for the disclosure of dealings in relevant securities during an offer. |
Employee representatives or employees of both the offeror and the offeree company and the trustees of the offeree company’s pension scheme must be informed about an offer. In addition, the offeree company’s employee representatives and pension scheme trustees have the right to have a separate opinion on the effects of the offer on employment and pension scheme(s), respectively, appended to the offeree board of directors’ circular or published on a website.
The three class structure of our ordinary shares has the effect of concentrating voting control for the foreseeable future, which will limit your ability to influence corporate matters.
Our Class B ordinary shares have 10 votes per share, and our Class A ordinary shares, which are the shares underlying the ADSs, and Class C ordinary shares each have one vote per share. Given the greater number of votes per share attributed to our Class B ordinary shares, holders of Class B ordinary shares collectively beneficially hold shares representing approximately 89.2% of the voting rights of our outstanding share capital as of August 31, 2019. Further, John Cotterell, our Chief Executive Officer, beneficially holds Class B ordinary shares representing approximately 36.3% of the voting rights of our outstanding share capital as of August 31, 2019. Consequently, Mr. Cotterell will continue to be able to have a significant influence on corporate matters submitted to a vote of shareholders. Notwithstanding this concentration of control, we do not currently qualify as a “controlled company” under New York Stock Exchange listing rules.
This concentrated control will limit your ability to influence corporate matters for the foreseeable future. This concentrated control could also discourage a potential investor from acquiring our ADSs due to the limited voting power of the Class A ordinary shares underlying the ADSs relative to the Class B ordinary shares and might harm the market price of our ADSs. In addition, Mr. Cotterell has the ability to control the management and major strategic investments of our company as a result of his position as our Chief Executive Officer. As a member of our board of directors, Mr. Cotterell owes statutory and fiduciary duties to us and must act in good faith and in a manner that he considers would be most likely to promote the success of our company for the benefit of our shareholders as a whole. As a shareholder, Mr. Cotterell is entitled to vote his shares in his own interests, which may not always be in the interests of our shareholders generally. For a description of our three class structure, see “Description of Share Capital and Articles of Association.”
Future transfers by other holders of Class B ordinary shares and Class C ordinary shares will generally result in those shares converting on a one-to-one basis to Class A ordinary shares, subject to limited exceptions, such as certain transfers effected for estate planning purposes. The conversion of our Class B ordinary shares into Class A ordinary shares will have the effect, over time, of increasing the relative voting power of those holders of Class B ordinary shares who retain their shares in the long-term.
32
We cannot predict the impact our three class share structure may have on our ADS price or our business.
We cannot predict whether our three class share structure, combined with the concentrated control of our shareholders who held our ordinary shares prior to the completion of our initial public offering, including our executive officers, employees and directors and their affiliates, will result in a lower or more volatile market price of our ADSs or in adverse publicity or other adverse consequences. For example, certain index providers have announced restrictions on including companies with multiple-class share structures in certain of their indexes. In July 2017, FTSE Russell announced that it plans to require new constituents of its indexes to have greater than 5% of the company's voting rights in the hands of public shareholders, and S&P Dow Jones announced that it will no longer admit companies with multiple-class share structures to certain of its indexes. Because of our three class structure, we will likely be excluded from these indexes and we cannot assure you that other stock indexes will not take similar actions. Given the sustained flow of investment funds into passive strategies that seek to track certain indexes, exclusion from stock indexes would likely preclude investment by many of these funds and could make our ADSs less attractive to other investors. As a result, the market price of our ADSs could be adversely affected.
The rights of our shareholders may differ from the rights typically offered to shareholders of a U.S. corporation.
We are incorporated under English law. The rights of holders of ordinary shares and, therefore, certain of the rights of holders of our ADSs, are governed by English law, including the provisions of the Companies Act 2006, or the Companies Act, and by our Articles of Association. These rights differ in certain respects from the rights of shareholders in typical U.S. corporations. See “Item 10.B—Memorandum and Articles of Association” and “Item 16.G—Corporate Governance” in this Annual Report on Form 20-F for a description of the principal differences between the provisions of the Companies Act applicable to us and, for example, the Delaware General Corporation Law relating to shareholders' rights and protections.
Holders of our ADSs have fewer rights than our shareholders and must act through the depositary to exercise their rights.
Holders of our ADSs do not have the same rights as our shareholders and may only exercise their voting rights with respect to the underlying Class A ordinary shares in accordance with the provisions of the deposit agreement. Holders of the ADSs have appointed the depositary or its nominee as their representative to exercise the voting rights attaching to the Class A ordinary shares represented by the ADSs. When a general meeting is convened, if you hold ADSs, you may not receive sufficient notice of a shareholders’ meeting to permit you to withdraw the Class A ordinary shares underlying your ADSs to allow you to vote directly with respect to any specific matter. We will make all commercially reasonable efforts to cause the depositary to extend voting rights to you in a timely manner, but we cannot assure you that you will receive voting materials in time to instruct the depositary to vote, and it is possible that you, or persons who hold their ADSs through brokers, dealers or other third parties, will not have the opportunity to exercise a right to vote. Furthermore, the depositary will not be liable for any failure to carry out any instructions to vote, for the manner in which any vote is cast or for the effect of any such vote. As a result, you may not be able to exercise your right to vote and you may lack recourse if your ADSs are not voted as you request. In addition, in your capacity as an ADS holder, you will not be able to call a shareholders’ meeting. See “Item 12.D—Description of American Depositary Shares.”
Holders of our ADSs may face limitations on transfer and withdrawal of underlying Class A ordinary shares.
Our ADSs, which may be evidenced by ADRs, are transferable on the books of the depositary. However, the depositary may close its books at any time or from time to time when it deems expedient in connection with the performance of its duties. The depositary may refuse to deliver, transfer or register transfers of your ADSs generally when our books or the books of the depositary are closed, or at any time if we or the depositary think it is advisable to do so because of any requirement of law, government or governmental body, or under any provision of the deposit agreement, or for any other reason subject to your right to cancel your ADSs and withdraw the underlying Class A ordinary shares. Temporary delays in the cancellation of your ADSs and withdrawal of the underlying Class A ordinary shares may arise because the depositary has closed its transfer books or we have closed our transfer books, the transfer of ordinary shares is blocked to permit voting at a shareholders’ meeting or we are paying a dividend on our Class A ordinary shares. In addition, you may not be able to cancel your ADSs and withdraw the underlying Class A ordinary shares when you owe money for fees, taxes and similar charges and when it is necessary to prohibit withdrawals in
33
order to comply with any laws or governmental regulations that apply to ADSs or to the withdrawal of Class A ordinary shares or other deposited securities. See “Item 12.D—Description of American Depositary Shares.”
ADS holders may not be entitled to a jury trial with respect to claims arising under the deposit agreement, which could result in less favorable outcomes to the plaintiff(s) in any such action.
The deposit agreement governing the ADSs representing our Class A ordinary shares provides that holders and beneficial owners of ADSs irrevocably waive the right to a trial by jury in any legal proceeding arising out of or relating to the deposit agreement or the ADSs, including in respect of claims under federal securities laws, against us or the depositary to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law. If this jury trial waiver provision is prohibited by applicable law, an action could nevertheless proceed under the terms of the deposit agreement with a jury trial. To our knowledge, the enforceability of a jury trial waiver under the federal securities laws has not been finally adjudicated by a federal court. However, we believe that a jury trial waiver provision is generally enforceable under the laws of the State of New York, which govern the deposit agreement, by a court of the State of New York or a federal court, which have non-exclusive jurisdiction over matters arising under the deposit agreement, applying such law. In determining whether to enforce a jury trial waiver provision, New York courts and federal courts will consider whether the visibility of the jury trial waiver provision within the agreement is sufficiently prominent such that a party has knowingly waived any right to trial by jury. We believe that this is the case with respect to the deposit agreement and the ADSs. In addition, New York courts will not enforce a jury trial waiver provision in order to bar a viable setoff or counterclaim sounding in fraud or one which is based upon a creditor's negligence in failing to liquidate collateral upon a guarantor's demand, or in the case of an intentional tort claim (as opposed to a contract dispute), none of which we believe are applicable in the case of the deposit agreement or the ADSs. No condition, stipulation or provision of the deposit agreement or ADSs serves as a waiver by any holder or beneficial owner of ADSs or by us or the depositary of compliance with any provision of the federal securities laws. If you or any other holder or beneficial owner of ADSs brings a claim against us or the depositary in connection with such matters, you or such other holder or beneficial owner may not be entitled to a jury trial with respect to such claims, which may have the effect of limiting and discouraging lawsuits against us and/or the depositary. If a lawsuit is brought against us and/or the depositary under the deposit agreement, it may be heard only by a judge or justice of the applicable trial court, which would be conducted according to different civil procedures and may result in different outcomes than a trial by jury would have had, including results that could be less favorable to the plaintiff(s) in any such action, depending on, among other things, the nature of the claims, the judge or justice hearing such claims, and the venue of the hearing.
Claims of U.S. civil liabilities may not be enforceable against us.
We are incorporated under English law. Substantially all of our assets are located outside the United States. The majority of our senior management and board of directors reside outside the United States. As a result, it may not be possible for investors to effect service of process within the United States upon such persons or to enforce judgments obtained in U.S. courts against them or us, including judgments predicated upon the civil liability provisions of the U.S. federal securities laws.
The United States and the United Kingdom do not currently have a treaty providing for recognition and enforcement of judgments (other than arbitration awards) in civil and commercial matters. Consequently, a final judgment for payment given by a court in the United States, whether or not predicated solely upon U.S. securities laws, would not automatically be recognized or enforceable in the United Kingdom. In addition, uncertainty exists as to whether U.K. courts would entertain original actions brought in the United Kingdom against us or our directors or senior management predicated upon the securities laws of the United States or any state in the United States. Any final and conclusive monetary judgment for a definite sum obtained against us in U.S. courts would be treated by the courts of the United Kingdom as a cause of action in itself and sued upon as a debt at common law so that no retrial of the issues would be necessary, provided that certain requirements are met. Whether these requirements are met in respect of a judgment based upon the civil liability provisions of the U.S. securities laws, including whether the award of monetary damages under such laws would constitute a penalty, is an issue for the court making such decision. If an English court gives judgment for the sum payable under a U.S. judgment, the English judgment will be enforceable by methods generally available for this purpose. These methods generally permit the English court discretion to prescribe the manner of enforcement.
34
As a result, U.S. investors may not be able to enforce against us or our senior management, board of directors or certain experts named herein who are residents of the United Kingdom or countries other than the United States any judgments obtained in U.S. courts in civil and commercial matters, including judgments under the U.S. federal securities laws.
As a foreign private issuer, we are exempt from a number of rules under the U.S. securities laws and are permitted to file less information with the SEC than U.S. public companies.
We are a “foreign private issuer,” as defined in the SEC rules and regulations and, consequently, we are not subject to all of the disclosure requirements applicable to companies organized within the United States. For example, we are exempt from certain rules under the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, that regulate disclosure obligations and procedural requirements related to the solicitation of proxies, consents or authorizations applicable to a security registered under the Exchange Act. In addition, our officers and directors are exempt from the reporting and “short-swing” profit recovery provisions of Section 16 of the Exchange Act and related rules with respect to their purchases and sales of our securities. Further, we are not required to comply with Regulation FD, which restricts the selective disclosure of material information. Moreover, we are not required to file periodic reports and financial statements with the SEC as frequently or as promptly as U.S. public companies. Accordingly, there may be less publicly available information concerning our company than there is for U.S. public companies.
As a foreign private issuer, we file annual reports on Form 20-F within four months of the close of each fiscal year ended June 30 and reports on Form 6-K relating to certain material events promptly after we publicly announce these events. However, because of the above exemptions for foreign private issuers, our shareholders are not afforded the same protections or information generally available to investors holding shares in public companies organized in the United States.
While we are a foreign private issuer, we are not subject to certain New York Stock Exchange corporate governance listing standards applicable to U.S. listed companies.
We are entitled to rely on a provision in the New York Stock Exchange’s corporate governance listing standards that allows us to follow English corporate law and the Companies Act with regard to certain aspects of corporate governance. This allows us to follow certain corporate governance practices that differ in significant respects from the corporate governance requirements applicable to U.S. companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
For example, we are exempt from New York Stock Exchange regulations that require a listed U.S. company to (1) have a majority of the board of directors consist of independent directors, (2) require regularly scheduled executive sessions with only independent directors each year and (3) have a remuneration committee or a nominations or corporate governance committee consisting entirely of independent directors.
In accordance with our New York Stock Exchange listing, our audit committee is required to comply with the provisions of Section 301 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and Rule 10A-3 of the Exchange Act, both of which are also applicable to New York Stock Exchange-listed U.S. companies. Because we are a foreign private issuer, however, our audit committee is not subject to additional New York Stock Exchange requirements applicable to listed U.S. companies, including an affirmative determination that all members of the audit committee are “independent,” using more stringent criteria than those applicable to us as a foreign private issuer. Furthermore, the New York Stock Exchange’s corporate governance listing standards require listed U.S. companies to, among other things, seek shareholder approval for the implementation of certain equity compensation plans and issuances of ordinary shares, which we are not required to follow as a foreign private issuer.
We may lose our foreign private issuer status, which would then require us to comply with the Exchange Act's domestic reporting regime and cause us to incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses.
As a foreign private issuer, we are not required to comply with all of the periodic disclosure and current reporting requirements of the Exchange Act applicable to U.S. domestic issuers. We may no longer be a foreign private issuer as of December 31, 2019 (the end of our second fiscal quarter in the fiscal year after our initial public offering), which would require us to comply with all of the periodic disclosure and current reporting requirements of the Exchange Act applicable to U.S. domestic issuers as of January 1, 2020. In order to maintain our current status as a foreign private
35
issuer, either (a) a majority of our ordinary shares must be either directly or indirectly owned of record by non-residents of the United States or (b)(1) a majority of our executive officers or directors cannot be U.S. citizens or residents, (2) more than 50 percent of our assets must be located outside the United States and (3) our business must be administered principally outside the United States. If we lose our status as a foreign private issuer, we would be required to comply with the Exchange Act reporting and other requirements applicable to U.S. domestic issuers, which are more detailed and extensive than the requirements for foreign private issuers and will require that we prepare our financial statements in accordance with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. We may also be required to make changes in our corporate governance practices in accordance with various SEC and rules. The regulatory and compliance costs to us under U.S. securities laws if we are required to comply with the reporting requirements applicable to a U.S. domestic issuer will be significantly higher than the cost we would incur as a foreign private issuer. As a result, we expect that a loss of foreign private issuer status would increase our legal and financial compliance costs and would make some activities highly time consuming and costly.
We are an “emerging growth company” and we cannot be certain if the reduced reporting and disclosure requirements applicable to emerging growth companies will make our ADSs less attractive to investors.
We are an “emerging growth company,” as defined in the JOBS Act, and we take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not “emerging growth companies” including, but not limited to, the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and, to the extent that we no longer qualify as a foreign private issuer pursuant to which standards we are not required to provide detailed compensation disclosures or file proxy statements, reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements, and exemptions from the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation and shareholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. If some investors find our ADSs less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our ADSs and our ADS price may be more volatile.
As a result of becoming a public company, we are obligated to develop and maintain proper and effective internal controls over financial reporting and any failure to maintain the adequacy of these internal controls may adversely affect investor confidence in our company and, as a result, the value of our ADSs.
As a public company, we are required, pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, or Section 404, to furnish a report by management on, among other things, the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2019. This assessment is required to include disclosure of any material weaknesses identified by our management in our internal control over financial reporting. Our independent registered public accounting firm will not be required to attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting until our first annual report required to be filed with the SEC following the date we are no longer an “emerging growth company,” as defined in the JOBS Act. We will be required to disclose significant changes made in our disclosure controls or internal control procedures on a quarterly basis.
Although we have not identified any material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2019, we may do so in the future. If we identify one or more material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting in the future, we will be unable to assert that our internal control over financial reporting is effective. We cannot assure you that there will not be material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting in the future.
Any failure to maintain internal control over financial reporting could severely inhibit our ability to accurately report our financial condition or results of operations. If we are unable to conclude in the future that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, or if our independent registered public accounting firm determines we have a material weakness or significant deficiency in our internal control over financial reporting, we could lose investor confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, the market price of our ADSs could decline, and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by the New York Stock Exchange, the SEC or other regulatory authorities. Failure to remedy any material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting, or to implement or maintain other effective control systems required of public companies, could also restrict our future access to the capital markets.
36
If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, or publish negative reports about our business, our share price and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our ADSs depends, in part, on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. We do not have any control over these analysts or the content that they publish about us. If our financial performance fails to meet analyst estimates or one or more of the analysts who cover us downgrade our ADSs or change their opinion of our ADSs, our ADS price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of our company or fail to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which could cause our ADS price or trading volume to decline.
We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future and, as a result, your ability to achieve a return on your investment will depend on appreciation in the price of our ADSs.
We currently intend to retain any future earnings to finance the growth and development of the business and, therefore, we do not anticipate that we will pay any cash dividends on our ordinary shares, including on the Class A ordinary shares underlying our ADSs, in the foreseeable future. Any determination to pay dividends in the future will be at the discretion of our board of directors and will be dependent upon our future financial condition, results of operations and capital requirements, general business conditions and other relevant factors as determined by our board of directors. Accordingly, investors must rely on sales of their ADSs after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investments.
Item 4. Information on the Company
A. History and Development of the Company
Corporate Information
The legal and commercial name of our company is Endava plc. We were originally incorporated in February 2006 as Endava Limited, a private company with limited liability and indefinite life under the laws of England and Wales. In July 2018, we completed a corporate reorganization, pursuant to which all of our shareholders were required to elect to exchange each of the existing ordinary shares in the capital of Endava Limited held by them for the same number of Class B ordinary shares or Class C ordinary shares; provided, that the Endava Limited Guernsey Employee Benefit Trust exchanged all existing ordinary shares held by it for the same number of Class A ordinary shares. Each Class A ordinary share is entitled to one vote per share, each Class B ordinary share is entitled to ten votes per share and each Class C ordinary share is entitled to one vote per share.
On July 6, 2018, we re-registered Endava Limited as a public limited company and our name was changed from Endava Limited to Endava plc. We are registered with the Registrar of Companies in England and Wales under number 5722669, and our registered office is 125 Old Broad Street, London EC2N 1AR, United Kingdom.
Our principal executive office is located at 125 Old Broad Street, London EC2N 1AR, United Kingdom and our telephone number is +44 20 7367 1000. Our agent for service of process in the United States is Endava Inc., located at 757 Third Avenue Suite 1900, New York, NY 10017 and the telephone number for Endava Inc. is +1 (212) 920-7240. Our website address is www.endava.com. Information contained on, or that can be accessed through, our website is not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 20-F, and you should not consider information on our website to be part of this Annual Report on Form 20-F.
Our capital expenditures for the years ended June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017 amounted to £7.3 million, £5.4 million and £6.5 million, respectively. These capital expenditures were related primarily to purchases of property and equipment for our delivery centres and software licences in Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, North Macedonia, Serbia and Latin America. We expect our capital expenditures to increase in absolute terms in the near term as we continue to grow our operations. We anticipate our capital expenditures in fiscal 2020 to be financed from cash generated from operations and our cash and cash equivalents. We will continue investing technology services in Europe, Latin America and the United States.
37
B. Business Overview
Overview
We are a leading next-generation technology services provider and help accelerate disruption by delivering rapid evolution to enterprises. We aid our clients in finding new ways to interact with their customers and users, enabling them to become more engaging, responsive and efficient. Using Distributed Enterprise Agile at scale, we collaborate with our clients, seamlessly integrating with their teams, catalyzing ideation and delivering robust solutions. Our approach to ideation comprises an empathy for user needs, curiosity, creativity and a deep understanding of technologies. From proof of concept, to prototype, to production, we use our engineering expertise to deliver enterprise platforms capable of handling millions of transactions per day. Our people, whom we call Endavans, synthesize creativity, technology and delivery at scale in multi-disciplinary teams, enabling us to support our clients from ideation to production.
Waves of technological change are disrupting the nature of competition in every industry. New technologies have enabled the growth and success of companies that leverage these technologies in every aspect of their businesses, or digital native companies, allowing them to be nimble, innovative, data driven and focused on user experience, often through an Agile development approach. Technology has also increased customer expectations, giving customers the ability to choose not only the products and services that they want, but also where, when and how they want them delivered. Incumbent enterprises must undertake digital transformation of their businesses by leveraging technology in order to meet ever-evolving customer expectations and compete with digital native disruptors. According to International Data Corporation, or IDC, the worldwide market for digital transformation services is expected to be approximately $390 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17% through 2022.
Technological transformation poses numerous challenges for incumbent enterprises. Incumbent enterprises are often laden with legacy infrastructure and applications that are deeply embedded in core transactional systems, making it difficult to reconcile maintenance of existing infrastructure and applications with a nimble approach to using next-generation technologies. Incumbent enterprises are also often stymied by institutional constraints that impede their ability to solve complex problems and rapidly respond to shifting competitive dynamics, as well as ingrained traditional approaches to development. The Agile methodology stands in stark contrast to the IT-department-driven, legacy approach often used by incumbent enterprises, which is premised on a sequential and siloed structure, involves long development cycles, fails to integrate user feedback and is often more costly. Likewise, internal IT teams at incumbent enterprises often struggle to absorb the rapid pace of technology development and its growing complexity. To effectively harness the power of technology, incumbent enterprises need talent in ideation, strategy, user experience, Agile development and next-generation technologies. While incumbent enterprises have historically looked to traditional information technology, or IT, service providers to undertake technology development projects, these traditional players were built to serve, and remain focused on serving, legacy systems using offshore delivery.
We help our clients become digital, experience-driven businesses by assisting them in their journey from idea generation to development and deployment of products, platforms and solutions. Our expertise spans the ideation-to-production spectrum across three broad solution areas - Digital Evolution, Agile Transformation and Automation - and consists of 12 service offerings: Strategy, Creative and User Experience, Insights through Data, Mobile and IoT, Architecture, Smart Automation, Software Engineering, Test Automation and Engineering, Continuous Delivery, Cloud, Advanced Applications Management and Smart Desk. At the core of our approach is our proprietary Distributed Enterprise Agile scaling framework, known as The Endava Agile Scaling framework, or TEAS. TEAS utilizes common Agile scaling frameworks, but enhances them by balancing the requirements of delivering both quality and speed-to-market, helping our clients release higher-quality products to market faster, respond better to market changes and incorporate customer and user feedback through rapid releases and product iterations. Our deep familiarity with technologies developed over the last decade including mobile connectivity, social media, automation, big data analytics and cloud delivery, as well as next-generation technologies such as IoT, artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality, virtual reality and blockchain, allows us to help our clients transform their businesses.
We locate our nearshore delivery centers in countries that not only have abundant IT talent pools, but also offer us an opportunity to be a preferred employer. We provide services from our nearshore delivery centers, located in two European Union countries – Romania and Bulgaria, three other Central European countries – North Macedonia, Moldova
38
and Serbia, and four countries in Latin America – Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay and Venezuela. We have close-to-client offices in four Western European countries – Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, as well as in the United States. As of June 30, 2019, we had 5,754 employees, approximately 53.2% of whom work in nearshore delivery centers in European Union countries. We provide Endavans with training to develop their technical and soft skills, in an environment where they are continually challenged and given opportunities to grow as professionals, and with tools and resources to innovate.
As of June 30, 2019, we had 275 active clients, which we define as clients who paid us for services over the preceding 12-month period. We have achieved significant growth in recent periods. For the fiscal years ended June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017, our revenue was £287.9 million, £217.6 million and £159.4 million, respectively, representing a compound annual growth rate of 34.4% over the three year period. We generated 45.0%, 45.3% and 50.2% of our revenue for the three fiscal years ended June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively, from clients located in the United Kingdom; we generated 27.5%, 33.7% and 33.6%, of our revenue in each of those fiscal years, respectively, from clients located in Europe; and we generated the balance of our revenue for each of those fiscal years from clients located in North America. Our revenue growth rate at constant currency, which is a measure that is not calculated and presented in accordance with IFRS, for the fiscal years ended June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017 was 31.1%, 37.2% and 28.5%, respectively. Over the last five fiscal years, 88.8% of our revenue, on average, each fiscal year came from clients who purchased services from us during the prior fiscal year. Our profit before taxes was £30.1 million, £24.7 million and £21.7 million, for the fiscal years ended June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017 respectively, and our profit before taxes as a percentage of revenue was 10.5%, 11.3% and 13.6%, respectively, for the same periods. Our adjusted profit before taxes margin, or Adjusted PBT Margin, which is a measure that is not calculated and presented in accordance with IFRS, was 18.0%, 15.4% and 15.8%, respectively, for the fiscal years ended June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017. See notes 1 and 6 in the section of this Annual Report on Form 20-F titled “Selected Financial Data – Non-IFRS Measures and Other Management Metrics” for a reconciliation of revenue growth rate at constant currency revenue growth rate and for a reconciliation of Adjusted PBT to profit before taxes, respectively, the most directly comparable financial measures calculated and presented in accordance with IFRS.
Industry Background
Overview
Waves of technological change are disrupting the nature of competition in every industry. New technologies have enabled the growth and success of digital native companies that leverage these technologies in every aspect of their businesses, allowing them to be nimble, innovative, data driven and focused on the user experience, often through an Agile development approach. Technology has also increased customer expectations, giving them the ability to choose not only the products and services that they want, but also where, when and how they want them delivered. Incumbent enterprises must undertake digital transformation of their businesses by leveraging technology in order to meet ever-evolving customer expectations and compete with digital native disruptors.
Significant Technology Innovation
Technology has gone through significant evolution in the last decade and this trend is expected to continue. The use of mobile connectivity, social media, automation, big data analytics and cloud delivery have become integral to business execution and emerging trends and technologies, including, the Internet of Things, or IoT, artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality, virtual reality and blockchain, hold the potential to significantly reshape industries. Because each new generation of technology builds on and advances the technology that came before it, the pace of technological innovation will continue to accelerate, increasing the pace at which enterprises will need to transform.
Empowered Customers and Users
The proliferation of new technologies has empowered customers and users across industries and increased their expectations. These technologies have allowed customers and users to have more information and more choices, thereby changing how they interact with enterprises and their products and services. Other users, such as employees, are bringing these same expectations to the workplace. Empowered customers and users are increasingly discerning and their preferences keep changing as technology evolves. As a result, for enterprises, continually transforming their interactions with all constituencies has become a competitive imperative.
39
Rise of the Digital Natives
These significant technological changes have enabled the emergence of digital native companies. These companies leverage emerging technologies in every aspect of their businesses and are nimble and innovative, data driven and focused on the user experience. Digital native companies are not encumbered by legacy technology. Over the past decade, they have revolutionized the way technology is used across all functions in an organization, how technology infrastructure is built and maintained and how technology solutions are developed, deployed and continually improved.
Increasing Adoption of the Agile Approach
Due to the influence of digital native companies, the adoption of Agile development across industries has become pervasive. Agile is an iterative and incremental methodology for development where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between cross-functional teams. Agile is user driven and focused on continuous delivery of small upgrades, facilitating highly differentiated speeds of innovation and time to market.
Challenges to Transformation
Incumbent enterprises must undertake digital transformation of their businesses by leveraging technology in order to meet ever-evolving customer expectations and compete with digital native disruptors. There are several challenges incumbent enterprises face in achieving technological transformation:
Significant Investment in Legacy Technology
For most incumbent enterprises, reorienting IT operations with new technology is expensive, time-consuming and risks service disruption. Incumbent enterprises are often laden with legacy infrastructure and applications that are difficult and expensive to operate and maintain. They cannot switch off and move away from legacy technology infrastructure investments as the legacy infrastructure is often deeply embedded in the core transactional systems that drive revenue. Incumbent enterprises must find ways to reconcile maintenance of existing infrastructure and applications with a nimble approach to using next-generation technologies.
Barriers to Innovation
Incumbent enterprises are fundamentally built to do what they are already doing and can struggle with innovation. They are often characterized by ingrained processes and cultural norms that do not encourage strategic shifts, with decision makers isolated from the economic consequences of choices. These institutional constraints can impede incumbent enterprises’ ability to solve complex problems and rapidly respond to shifting competitive dynamics. Incumbent enterprises need to learn to “build many” and “fail fast” in order to efficiently allocate resources and optimize their opportunities for success.
Not Built for Agile
Incumbent enterprises must adopt new technologies and rapidly execute on initiatives in order to remain competitive, but are often stymied by ingrained traditional approaches to development. The Agile methodology stands in stark contrast to the IT-department-driven, legacy approach often used by incumbent enterprises, which is premised on a sequential and siloed structure, involves long development cycles, fails to integrate user feedback and is often more costly.
Lack of Required Expertise and Talent
The modern competitive environment requires incumbent enterprises to deliver experiences to customers and users that are intuitive and unobtrusive. This, in turn, requires connectivity across channels of customer and user interaction and successfully harnessing next-generation technology. Internal IT teams at incumbent enterprises often struggle to absorb the rapid pace of technology development and its growing complexity. Incumbent enterprises need user experience strategy and design capability, as well as technology and engineering expertise, to develop effective and frictionless user experiences. Developing this capability and expertise requires the acquisition and retention of talent in ideation, strategy, user experience, Agile development and next-generation technologies. However, the market for employees with expertise in these areas is highly competitive.
40
Limitations of Traditional IT Service Providers
Incumbent enterprises have historically looked to traditional IT service providers to undertake technology development projects. Traditional IT service providers are built for commoditized development, integration and maintenance engagements, where cost is key. They can deliver on large-scale projects using scaled, cost-effective infrastructure and are generally expert in legacy systems. While some of these traditional IT service providers have invested in capabilities to provide user experience strategy and design, as well as Agile development capabilities, they were built to serve, and remain focused on serving, legacy systems using offshore delivery.
Our Opportunity
According to IDC, the worldwide market for digital transformation services is expected to be approximately $390 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17% through 2022. IDC defines digital transformation as the continuous process by which enterprises adapt to or drive disruptive changes in their customers and markets by leveraging digital competencies to innovate new business models, products and services that seamlessly blend digital and physical and business and customer experiences while improving operational efficiencies and organizational performance. Broadly, our target market is defined within categories, identified by IDC, of spending as business services, IT services, Infrastructure-as-a-Service, applications, application development and deployment, personal devices, system infrastructure software and other next-generation software, services, and materials, such as augmented reality, virtual reality, IoT, 3D printing, next-generation security and robotics.
The Endava Approach
We are a leading next-generation technology services provider and help accelerate disruption by delivering rapid evolution to enterprises. We aid our clients in finding new ways to interact with their customers and users, enabling them to become more engaging, responsive and efficient. Using Distributed Enterprise Agile at scale, we collaborate with our clients, seamlessly integrating with their teams, catalyzing ideation and delivering robust solutions. Our approach to ideation comprises an empathy for user needs, curiosity, creativity and a deep understanding of technologies. From proof of concept, to prototype, to production, we use our engineering expertise to deliver enterprise platforms capable of handling millions of transactions per day. Our people synthesize creativity, technology and delivery at scale in multi-disciplinary teams, enabling us to support our clients from ideation to production. Our expertise spans the ideation-to-production spectrum across three broad solution areas – Digital Evolution, Agile Transformation and Automation – and consists of 12 service offerings: Strategy, Creative and User Experience, Insights through Data, Mobile and IoT, Architecture, Smart Automation, Software Engineering, Test Automation and Engineering, Continuous Delivery, Cloud, Advanced Applications Management and Smart Desk.
Our Competitive Strengths
We have distinguished ourselves as a leader in next-generation technology services by leveraging the following competitive strengths:
Ideation through Production
We help our clients become digital, experience-driven businesses by assisting them in their journey from idea generation to development and deployment of products, platforms and solutions. By providing user-centric digital strategies and engineering skills, we enable our clients to become more engaging, responsive and efficient in delivering products and services to their customers and users. We collaborate with our clients, understand their changing technology needs and seamlessly integrate with their teams to develop long-term embedded relationships and drive value. Our expertise spans the ideation-to-production spectrum across three broad solution areas – Digital Evolution, Agile Transformation and Automation.
Proprietary Framework for Distributed Enterprise Agile at Scale
To allow us to deliver Distributed Enterprise Agile at scale, we have developed a proprietary Agile scaling framework, TEAS. Traditional Agile development methodologies have constraints that prevent them from scaling in a truly industrialized way without sacrificing agility. TEAS utilizes common Agile scaling frameworks, but enhances them by balancing the requirements of delivering both quality and speed-to-market. With TEAS, we seek to provide
41
enough guidance to allow teams to start tackling client challenges with confidence, while building in flexibility to adapt to evolving client needs, environments and cultures. TEAS enables us to scale across the spectrum from ideation to production by having product level planning for a group of releases, portfolio level planning for a group of products and an overarching strategy to guide the development of the portfolio. As a result, our teams are able to quickly design, develop and test digital solutions, providing actionable insights into their value and business potential in a short timeframe, while our clients are able to release higher-quality products to market faster, respond better to market changes and incorporate customer and user feedback through rapid releases and product iterations. We believe our dynamic approach to Distributed Enterprise Agile at scale delivers tangible and valuable benefits for our clients.
Expertise in Next-Generation Technologies
We have deep expertise in next-generation technologies that drives our ability to provide solutions for Digital Evolution, Agile Transformation and Automation. Our expertise ranges from technologies developed over the last decade including mobile connectivity, social media, automation, big data analytics and cloud delivery to next-generation technologies such as IoT, artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality, virtual reality and blockchain. Our frameworks, methodologies and tools, including TEAS and our proprietary Chronos software analysis tool for risk assessment of software codes, further enhance our ability to develop and deploy solutions based on these next-generation technologies. For example, we leveraged our expertise in augmented reality to conceive and build a solution that helps customers of a mobile communications company visualize areas where they can obtain network coverage.
We believe that technology will continue to evolve and that enterprises must continue to evolve their service offerings in order to thrive in such a dynamic environment. Our company-wide initiatives such as Endava Labs, our innovation think tank, and our Digital Experience Council, our cross-functional, monthly digital exploration session, illustrate the innovative culture important for us to maintain our strong expertise in next-generation technologies. We continue to advance our service offerings and solutions areas to remain at the cutting edge of technological developments.
Strong Domain Expertise
We have deep expertise in industry verticals that are being disrupted by technological change. In the Payments and Financial Services vertical, we have helped accelerate the transformation of leading banks and payment processing companies by building new platforms and solutions such as merchant acquiring platforms, cloud-based payment processing platforms, mobile wallets, downloadable Point-of-Sale, or POS, mobile terminals, Smart POS terminals, real-time payments systems, omni-channel e-commerce gateways and merchant portals with real-time payments analytics. In the Technology, Media and Telecommunications, or TMT, vertical, we have helped clients design and build solutions for the connected home and car, to enhance multi-channel customer experiences and to automate processes, including developing an automated solution to facilitate the purchase of television advertising in the United States.
Employer of Choice in Regions with Deep Pools of Talent
We strive to be one of the leading employers of IT professionals in the regions in which we operate. We provide services from our nearshore delivery centers, located in two European Union countries – Romania and Bulgaria, three other Central European countries – North Macedonia, Moldova and Serbia, and four countries in Latin America – Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay and Venezuela. We have close-to-client offices in four Western European countries – Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, as well as in the United States. As of June 30, 2019, we had 5,754 employees, approximately 53.2% of whom work in nearshore delivery centers in European Union countries. We locate our nearshore delivery centers in countries that not only have abundant IT talent pools, but also offer us an opportunity to be a preferred employer. For example, a majority of our employees are located in Romania, where we have been identified as a top employer for each of the last five years.
Distinctive Culture and Values
We believe that our people are our most important asset. We provide Endavans with training to develop their technical and soft skills, in an environment where they are continually challenged and given opportunities to grow as professionals, and with tools and resources to innovate. Endava University and “Pass It On” are key elements of our training and development framework. Endava University provides classroom based training and “Pass It On” uses
42
apprenticeship and open sharing so that our people can grow by way of collective experiences and knowledge. Our employees also have career coaches to customize their integration into their respective teams and to help visualize their development and future. Through Endava Labs and regular hackathons, our teams are encouraged to express their creativity in using next-generation technologies to build innovative solutions. We believe that we have built an organization deeply committed to helping people succeed and that our culture fosters our core values of openness, thoughtfulness and adaptability.
Founder Led, Experienced and Motivated Management Team.
Our management team, led by John Cotterell, our founder and chief executive officer, has significant experience in the global technology and services industries. Since our founding in 2000, we have expanded from a single office serving clients principally located in the city of London to a global enterprise serving clients across Europe and North America from nearshore delivery centers located in Central Europe and Latin America. We believe that we have a strong partnership culture. Our most senior 47 employees have an average tenure at Endava of 11 years, which we believe evidences the success of our approach. Additionally, our management team focuses on mentoring our IT professionals at all levels to develop the next generation of leadership.
Our Strategy
We are focused on continuing to distinguish ourselves as a leader in next-generation technology services. The key elements of our strategy include:
Expand Relationships with Existing Clients
We are focused on continuing to expand our relationships with existing clients by helping them solve new problems and become more engaging, responsive and efficient. We have a demonstrated track record of expanding our work with clients after an initial engagement. Our ten largest clients contributed 37.7% and 41.5% of our total revenue in the last two fiscal years, respectively, and the number of clients that have a minimum annual spend of at least £1.0 million has grown from 46 to 63 over the same time period. Expansion of our relationships with existing active clients will remain a key strategy going forward as we continue to leverage our deep domain expertise and knowledge of emerging technology trends in order to drive incremental growth for our business.
Establish New Client Relationships
We believe that we have a significant opportunity to add new clients. We have established ourselves as a leader in delivering end-to-end ideation-to-production services in the Payments and Financial Services and TMT verticals. Clients in the Payments and Financial Services vertical contributed to 52.9%, 56.8% and 57.1%, and of our total revenue in the 2019, 2018 and 2017 fiscal years, respectively. Clients in the TMT vertical contributed 27.4%, 28.1% and 30.5%, of our total revenue in the 2019, 2018 and 2017 fiscal years, respectively. Clients in our Other vertical contributed 19.7%, 15.1% and 12.4%, of our total revenue in the 2019, 2018 and 2017 fiscal years, respectively. We believe that we continue to have a significant untapped opportunity in these sectors and we plan to leverage this experience to expand our vertical reach. As waves of technological change sweep across industries and increasingly facilitate seamless integration of different aspects of customers and users lives, we believe our experience working within our core client base will also be of particular value in expanding our vertical reach. For example, as customers increasingly demand a frictionless and consistent buying experience and the payments and retail sectors converge, we believe our deep expertise in developing payment systems and e-commerce platforms will allow us to grow our base of retail clients. Similarly, our expertise in data analytics and augmented and virtual reality will be increasingly relevant in the healthcare industry as technology continues to reshape the practice and provision of medicine. We are also focused on the consumer products, logistics and professional services verticals as key areas for growth.
We are likewise focused on geographic expansion, particularly in North America. In the 2019 fiscal year, approximately 27.5% of our revenue came from clients in North America. With our acquisition of Velocity Partners, we increased our sales presence in the United States, and added nearshore delivery capacity in Latin America, which we believe will allow us to further penetrate the North American market. In addition, we plan to evaluate other growth markets, including countries in the Asia Pacific region, to expand our client footprint.
43
Lead Adoption of Next-Generation Technologies
We seek to apply our creative skills and deep digital technical engineering capabilities to enhance our clients’ value to their end customers and users. As a result, we are highly focused on remaining at the forefront of emerging technology trends, including in areas such as IoT, artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality, virtual reality and blockchain. For example, we have developed next-generation technology solutions such as blockchain payment gateways and chatbot-enabled social payments. We are embedded and integrated with our clients, which gives us unique insight into how emerging industry trends can help address their needs. We plan to leverage these insights to continue innovating for our clients.
Expand Scale in Nearshore Delivery
We believe that Distributed Enterprise Agile at scale requires that we have teams based in locations with similar time zones to those of our clients since our delivery teams are in constant dialogue and interaction with our clients. We focus on being an employer of choice for IT professionals in the regions in which we operate, which include countries with deep and largely untapped creative and engineering talent pools, and on being an employer of choice in local markets. As we continue to expand our relationships with existing clients and attract new clients, we plan to expand our teams at existing delivery centers and open new delivery centers in nearshore locations with an abundance of technical talent.
Selectively Pursue “Tuck-In” Acquisitions
We plan to selectively pursue “tuck-in” acquisitions. Our focus is on augmenting our core capabilities to enhance our expertise in new technologies and verticals and increase our geographic reach, while preserving our corporate culture and sustainably managing our growth. Consistent with these goals, we have completed five acquisitions in the past five fiscal years, all of which have accelerated core strategic goals. For example, our acquisition of Nickelfish in 2015 increased our user experience and design capabilities, while our acquisition of Velocity Partners in 2017 increased our North American client base and added nearshore delivery centers in Latin America. We have a demonstrated track record of successfully identifying, acquiring and integrating complementary business and plan to leverage this experience as we pursue “tuck-in” acquisitions that help accelerate our strategy.
Our Solutions and Services
We focus on delivering three key types of solutions for our clients that span the ideation-to-production spectrum, helping our clients be more engaging, responsive and efficient.
Digital Evolution – Helping our clients achieve greater engagement with their customers
Our clients need well architected and engineered technology, designed and integrated with their products and services, to become digital, experience-driven businesses. We act as a strategic partner to design, deliver and support digital solutions that enable our clients’ businesses to compete effectively and provide a frictionless user experience to their customers and users. Our digital strategists, engineers and industry experts support our clients from ideation to production, helping them meet their business needs through the digital strategy, design, and engineering and integration lifecycle.
Agile Transformation – Helping our clients respond faster to market opportunities
Agile Transformation allows our clients to release products to market faster through more rapid iterations of technology solutions than traditional development methods. Unlike traditional IT service providers who design and deliver processes from outside the business, we work alongside our clients to understand their challenges from within and support them in addressing these challenges. Our engineers drive the adoption of Distributed Enterprise Agile at scale and help in creating a strong core of Agile practitioners that drive collaboration across clients’ business, technology and operations teams.
Automation – Helping our clients drive efficiency through automation of their business
44
Our services help improve the efficiency of our clients’ organizations through automation in areas ranging from technical IT processes to complex business processes. We provide services to automate business workflows, reducing the need for costly and time-consuming manual processes. We also integrate automated testing and deployment into the software production process.
Underpinning these solutions are 12 service offerings, set forth below. Often a single client engagement requires a number of these services. For instance, it would be common for an engagement to originate with a Strategy assignment and then leverage Creative and User Experience design, Software Engineering, Test Automation and Engineering and Advanced Applications Management. We continually evolve our service offerings to leverage next-generation technologies and meet the needs of our clients.
Strategy
We are embedded and integrated with our clients, which gives us unique insight into how emerging industry trends can help address their needs, and enables us to formulate and deliver strategies that provide competitive differentiation. We explore innovative new ideas with our clients, bringing them to life in proof-of-concept to help formulate strategic vision and build a foundation for continued nimbleness and transformation.
Creative and User Experience
We help clients meet the challenges of a highly-competitive and rapidly-evolving marketplace by designing a user experience that leverages simple and frictionless interactions to meet customer and user needs. From the outset of a project and throughout the development lifecycle, we continuously validate design decisions with users in real-world situations, while remaining focused on the business objective. We focus on user context, such as socio-cultural differences, to ensure the appropriate user experience is delivered in the appropriate situation.
Insights through Data
In order to provide actionable business insights, we help our clients’ define key business metrics and embed tools to capture and analyze relevant data. Through a combination of domain and technological expertise, we enable clients to extract value from the large volume of structured and unstructured data in their enterprises, transforming it into a tool for competitive differentiation. We embrace a wide range of data science technologies to provide clients with solutions that can be applied across multiple industries.
Mobile and IoT
We provide solutions that leverage the power of mobile connectivity and IoT to develop flexible and adaptable solutions to business challenges. The ubiquitousness of mobile networks and the emergence of the IoT has also given enterprises the ability to collect and analyze massive amounts of previously uncaptured data, providing them with new insights into customer and user behavior and operational workflows.
Architecture
As our clients digitally evolve and adopt the Agile approach, we help integrate new systems into their existing technology architecture and help their existing systems keep pace. We review clients’ current architectures and provide support in building architectural capability, sharing best practices and advising on people, process and tools. We take
45
an incremental approach to architecture and projects, allowing us to plan, adapt and deliver solutions that increase responsiveness, mitigate risks and achieve continuous improvement.
Smart Automation
We use next-generation technologies, including artificial intelligence, bots, natural language interfaces and robotic process automation, together with microservices and open application programming interfaces, to help our clients transform areas ranging from technical IT processes to complex business processes. Leveraging our creative and engineering capabilities, we work with our clients to create complete solutions, often involving custom, task-oriented user interfaces, sophisticated integration and continuous delivery pipelines. We often use a blend of open source, commercial and custom technologies in order to optimize for cost, flexibility, sophistication and long-term sustainability requirements unique to our clients’ environments. Where appropriate, we also work with the major cloud delivery providers with respect to both their Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Software-as-a-Service offerings.
Software Engineering
We help our clients deliver effective, high-quality software. With broad software engineering capabilities, we can choose the methods, technologies and tools best suited to clients’ business needs. Our engineers use a broad range of technologies including Ansible, Chef, Docker, Elastic Search, Karaf, Kibana, Logstash, Nexus, NuGet, Octopus Deploy, Puppet, Salt Stack, Splunk, UrbanCode and Vagrant. Our TEAS framework provides us with a flexible approach for running large software projects and our disruptive nature means that we constantly experiment with the latest tools and techniques, allowing us to select technologies with the right balance between innovation and predictability.
Test Automation and Engineering
Our test engineering teams bring together testers, developers and architects, enabling the solutions we provide to harness available technical and strategic assets. We address technical challenges with smart automation and effective collaboration, with the goal of driving continuous improvement, increasing quality, reducing costs and minimizing risk for our clients.
Continuous Delivery
Using our TEAS framework for Distributed Enterprise Agile at scale, we help our clients be rapidly responsive to competitive shifts and smooth the path-to-production for their digital transformation initiatives. We combine creative and engineering talent with business focus to enable more rapid and streamlined releases across geographies. We work to enhance our clients’ team’s capabilities, applying and implementing Agile development to improve collaboration across all layers of their businesses.
Cloud
We believe that next-generation cloud delivery technology provides the flexibility and scalability necessary for digital transformation. We help our clients conceive of and execute cloud delivery strategies that best serve the evolving needs of their customers and users, while integrating next-generation cloud delivery with the legacy IT systems that clients have invested in and rely on. With 24/7 support, integrated monitoring, alerting and system management tools and incident management and escalation processes, we help our clients optimize performance, efficiency and scalability across their on-premises and cloud environments.
Advanced Applications Management
We offer end-to-end application management services that focus on continuous improvement of systems or applications to increase resiliency and accommodate growth. We integrate platforms, infrastructure and third-party services through engagements that are flexible and tailored to our clients’ technology, enabling our clients to be more nimble and responsive.
Smart Desk
46
We provide business-focused smart desk services designed to drive client satisfaction. Leveraging our experience in automation, we offer a self-service function that prioritizes user experience. We use data insights to continually improve our smart desk offerings in order to meet the evolving needs of increasingly discerning and empowered users.
Our Frameworks, Methods and Tools
Our frameworks, methods and tools, including TEAS, enhance our ability to develop and deploy solutions based on next-generation technologies. Developed with a focus on providing innovation, quality and productivity at scale, we believe our frameworks, methods and tools allow us to:
• |
Deliver outcome driven programs to our clients, with faster time-to-market and favorable return on investment; |
• |
Tailor our approach to the needs of our clients and respond flexibly to changing client objectives and market conditions; |
• |
Improve our clients visibility into budgets, status and progress of technology projects; and |
• |
Provide better solutions. |
Our key frameworks, methods and tools include the following:
The Endava Agile Scaling Framework (TEAS)
To allow us to deliver Distributed Enterprise Agile at scale, we have developed a proprietary Agile scaling framework, TEAS. Traditional Agile development methodologies use small multi-disciplinary “scrum teams,” with members in close proximity. However, today most enterprise development projects require large development teams that are often geographically or organizationally dispersed. Collaboration, communication and oversight can break down, making it difficult to scale Agile development methodologies. Further, commonly used Agile scaling frameworks are generally either overly prescriptive, thereby compromising agility, or overly informal, thereby compromising effective oversight.
TEAS utilizes common Agile scaling frameworks, but enhances them by balancing the requirements of delivering both quality and speed-to-market. With TEAS, we seek to provide enough guidance to allow teams to start tackling client challenges with confidence, while building in flexibility to adapt to evolving client needs, environments and cultures. Each of our scrum teams typically consists of six to eight team members with the appropriate mix of technical ability, leadership and project management skills, domain expertise, creative and user experience capabilities and software development and quality assurance expertise. For larger and more complex projects, we employ a “scrum-of-scrums” approach, which is led by representatives from each scrum team, and facilitates an incremental level of collaboration across scrum teams. TEAS enables us to move beyond team-level Agile working to scale product-level planning for a group of releases, portfolio-level planning for a group of products and an overarching strategy to guide the development of the portfolio.
TEAS enables us to provide Distributed Enterprise Agile at scale with the same focus on communication, collaboration and iterative releases that makes smaller-scale Agile development effective. With TEAS, our teams are able to quickly design, develop and test digital solutions, providing actionable insights into their value and business potential in a short timeframe. Our clients are able to release higher-quality products to market faster, respond better to market changes and incorporate customer and user feedback through rapid releases and product iterations. We believe that our TEAS framework is enhanced through advanced software engineering practices involving multi-skilled teams able to employ Development Operations, or DevOps, techniques, such as automated testing, continuous integration, continuous delivery and infrastructure automation.
Chronos
Chronos is our proprietary software analysis tool for risk assessment of software codes. It detects “anti-patterns” in the evolution of a project’s codebase and the behaviors of the team who developed it. “Anti-patterns” are common practices that initially appear to be appropriate solutions, but end up having negative consequences that outweigh any benefits. Chronos supports both quality and productivity improvement by providing deep insight into the evolution of
47
a large codebase. It does so by analyzing the codebase stored in version control systems (Git and SVN) in regards to who changed what, why and when to identify and reverse negative trends in development team behavior.
Chronos offers several benefits to our employees as well as our clients. It allows our clients to identify areas in the code that are higher risk or attract more defects than other areas, giving them an integrated, balanced, holistic view of the risks in, and quality of, their codebase. Chronos also helps new team members get up to speed with a new project quickly. It helps managers oversee risks and proactively ensure skills are balanced effectively across scrum teams. It can increase the value and productivity of due diligence and technical reviews by providing information on the technologies and their evolution, on key people involved with the project and on code and process quality issues.
Testing Toolbox
One of the key challenges associated with rapid technology development is the need to have rigorous, fast and frequent testing, which can only be achieved through high levels of automation. This is particularly challenging when building test automation for Distributed Enterprise Agile at scale and DevOps, where test frameworks need to be light, flexible and easily integrated into the build pipeline. We have developed our testing toolbox in order to enable fast and efficient test execution. Our testing toolbox accelerates the provision of lean automation solutions and contains accelerators for testing web and cross browsers, application programming interfaces, services and microservices, mobile devices, security, accessibility and performance. The testing toolbox helps us reduce the time to implement test automation solutions and allows us the flexibility to extend frameworks in-sprint, without relying on a test tool vendor.
Two key testing automation solutions are part of our testing toolbox: Ensec and our Mobile Testing Framework. EnSec is our security testing accelerator that can be deployed in minutes, either on a stand-alone basis or within the development pipeline, and automatically checks applications for the Open Web Application Security Project vulnerabilities. Our Mobile Testing Framework automates testing of mobile phones and devices hosted in our delivery units and in the cloud. This framework enables multiple devices to be tested in parallel, thereby removing the need for manual regression testing and reducing the time and effort required.
CSAT
Customer Satisfaction Analysis Tool, or CSAT, is our client management tool, which allows us to collect regular client feedback. CSAT relies on surveys, common use testimonials, continuous service improvement monitoring and the collection of social media mentions to gather a robust view of how clients feel about Endava and how we respond to their feedback. CSAT helps us differentiate ourselves in managing customers in a sustainable way.
Our Delivery Model
We believe the development of a scaled global, nearshore delivery model with selective close-to-client capabilities enables us to deliver higher-quality technology services to meet our clients’ needs. Nearshore delivery locations with geographic proximity, cultural affinity and complementary time zones enable increased interaction with our clients, enhance relationships and improve responsiveness for more efficient delivery of our services. As a result, we are able to differentiate ourselves on projects that require a high degree of client collaboration and iteration.
We provide services out of nearshore delivery centers located in two European Union countries – Romania and Bulgaria, three other Central Europe countries – North Macedonia, Moldova and Serbia, and four countries in Latin America – Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay and Venezuela and close-to-client offices in Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. As of June 30, 2019, we had 5,754 employees, approximately 53.2% of whom work in nearshore delivery centers in European Union countries.
Our nearshore delivery model was first established in Central Europe in order to efficiently deliver our solutions to European clients. Our primary delivery centers are located in Romania, where we employed approximately 2,597 employees involved with delivery of our services as of June 30, 2019. As of June 30, 2019, we had 969 such employees located in Cluj-Napoca, the second largest city in Romania and 906 such employees located in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. We believe Romania is an ideal location to source IT delivery talent due to its educational infrastructure, large multi-lingual population, advanced technological infrastructure and flexible labor regulation. According to Eurostat, Romania has the highest share of engineers in the European Union in 2014. According to the
48
June 2012 Eurobarometer report, approximately 31% of Romania’s population speaks English. As of June 30, 2019, we also had approximately 1,691 IT professionals across our locations in Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Moldova and Serbia, which are countries that we believe offer many of the same benefits as Romania. To serve our North American clients, we had approximately 707 employees involved with delivery of our services across our seven Latin American delivery centers as of June 30, 2019, the majority of which are located in Argentina (300 employees) and Colombia (310 employees). We believe that the Latin American region as a whole has an abundant talent pool of individuals skilled in IT.
Employees at our close-to-client locations include our sales teams, as well as account management and other client-facing employees, which helps maintain quality and consistency in collaboration with our nearshore delivery teams.
In addition, we are highly focused on the security of our clients’ data and are certified to ISO 27001 standards.
Our Clients
As of June 30, 2019 we had 275 active clients, which we define as clients who spent money with us over the preceding 12-month period. Our clients are primarily enterprises based in the United Kingdom, European Union and United States. Our clients principally operate in the Financial Services and Payments and Technology, Media and Telecommunications verticals. We are also focused on growing our client base in other verticals, such as the consumer products, healthcare, logistics and retail verticals.
During the fiscal years ended June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017, our 10 largest clients based on revenue accounted for 37.7%, 41.5% and 49.1%, our total revenue, respectively. Our largest client for the fiscal years ended June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017, Worldpay accounted for 9.8%, 10.8% and 13.0%, of our revenue, respectively. For the quarter ended June 30, 2019, Worldpay accounted for 9.7% of our revenue. Pursuant to an agreement that we entered into with Worldpay in November 2016, we granted Worldpay an option to acquire a captive Romanian subsidiary that we created and staffed for Worldpay. On June 1, 2019, we entered into an agreement to sell the captive to Worldpay and to terminate the option and transfer agreement, and on August 31, 2019 the transaction was completed. See “Item 8: Financial Information—Significant Changes” for a further discussion on the sale of the captive Romanian subsidiary.
We are focused on building deep, long-term relationships with our clients, which often begin with a discrete project and develop into larger engagements. We target clients to whom we believe we can demonstrate our deep understanding of technological trends and our capability to provide end-to-end ideation-to-production services.
Some of our representative clients by vertical include Beazley, Rabobank, RSA, Jupiter, Vocalink and Worldpay in Payment & Financial Services; Adobe, Backbase, Poly and R&A in Technology, Media and Telecommunications; and Maersk, Rebecca Minkoff and Simplyhealth in Other.
Sales and Marketing
Our sales and marketing strategy is focused on driving revenue growth from existing and new clients. We run a single, highly integrated sales and marketing organization that comprises strategy, solutions and offers, marketing, lead generation, sales and account teams. As of June 30, 2019, we had 77 employees on our sales and marketing team located across our offices.
We have developed our Endava Sales Academy to cultivate sales talent internally and create a high-performing sales workforce that is culturally aligned with our values. Our Sales Academy begins with candidates joining lead generation teams, where they learn how to identify potential clients and sales techniques. Over the course of approximately three years, candidates progress through this program and can become business development managers.
We announced a strategic partnership with Bain & Company on October 11, 2018. The Bain-Endava partnership brings together deep skills in business and technology strategy, product ideation, technology development and deployment, and organizational change management to help support clients through successful transformations. As an indication of commitment to the partnership, Bain & Company has taken an ownership stake in Endava via our July 2018 initial public offering.
49
We have received various awards, including being:
• |
featured in the London Stock Exchange Group’s 1000 Companies to Inspire Britain 2019 report, which celebrates the fastest-growing and most dynamic enterprises in the UK. |
• |
winner of “Brand of the Year” award at the 5th edition of the annual Romanian Business Services Forum & Awards. |
• |
winner of the “Outsourcing Project of the Year” with BT Pay - the first mobile wallet launched by a Romanian Bank, at the 2019 ANIS Gala |
• |
recognized by the Best of the Global Outsourcing 100®, a celebratory list of the best companies in the last 10 years, presented by IAOP. |
• |
recognized by the Financial Times Future 100 UK, list honoring fast growing British companies that are making an impact, either on society or their industry. |
• |
ranked 22nd in the Sunday Times HSBC International Track 200; |
•named as the Company of the Year at the 2018ANIS Romania awards gala;
•ranked as one of the top 3 UK technical agencies in 2017, according to Econsultancy;
•ranked as one of the top 13 UK agencies in digital income in each of 2015, 2016 and 2017, according to Econsultancy;
•featured in the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) Global Outsourcing 100 lists in 2015 (Best Leaders in Employee Growth and Best Leaders in Revenue Growth), 2016 (Leaders Category for Top Company for Revenue and Employee Growth and for Programs for Innovation), 2017 (Leaders Category for Top Company for Programs for Innovation) and 2018 (Leaders Category for Top Company for Programs for Innovation and Awards and Certifications);
• |
recognized as employer of the year for outsourcing in Romania at the Romanian Outsourcing Awards for Excellence Gala in 2016; |
• |
ranked as one of the top 20 IT companies to work for in Romania by Biz Magazine in 2013, 2014 and 2015; and |
• |
the winner, together with Worldpay Group PLC, of Software Outsourcing Project of the Year at the 2017 ANIS gala in Romania. |
Competition
We operate in a global and dynamic market and compete with a variety of organizations that offer services similar to those that we offer.
We face competition primarily from:
• |
next-generation IT service providers, such as Globant S.A and EPAM Systems; |
• |
digital agencies and consulting companies, such as McKinsey & Company, Ideo, The Omnicom Group, Sapient Corporation and WPP plc; |
• |
global consulting and traditional IT service companies, such as Accenture PLC, Capgemini SE, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation and Tata Consultancy Services Limited; and |
• |
in-house development departments of our clients. |
50
We believe the principal competitive factors in our business include: ability to innovate; technical expertise and industry knowledge; end-to-end solution offerings; delivery location; price; reputation and track record for high-quality and on-time delivery of work; effective employee recruiting; training and retention; responsiveness to clients’ business needs; scale; and financial stability. We believe that we compete favorably with respect to each of these factors.
Facilities
Our corporate headquarters are located at 125 Broad Street, London EC2N 1AR, United Kingdom, where we lease approximately 1,000 square meters of office space. We provide services from delivery centers located in Argentina, Bulgaria, Colombia, North Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Uruguay and Venezuela and have additional offices in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States. We lease all of our facilities. We believe that our current facilities are suitable and adequate to meet our current needs and for the foreseeable future. Our delivery centres and offices as of June 30, 2019 are shown in the table below:
51
Location |
Type/Use |
Approximate Size(square meters) |
|||
Central Europe: |
|||||
Bucharest, Romania |
Delivery centre |
11,007 |
|||
Cluj, Romania |
Delivery centre |
9,889 |
|||
Belgrade, Serbia |
Delivery centre |
6,346 |
|||
Chisinau, Moldova |
Delivery centre |
5,310 |
|||
Iasi, Romania |
Delivery centre |
4,989 |
|||
Sofia, Bulgaria |
Delivery centre |
4,461 |
|||
Skopje, North Macedonia |
Delivery centre |
3,189 |
|||
Pitesti, Romania |
Delivery centre |
851 |
|||
Targu Mures, Romania |
Delivery centre |
518 |
|||
Timisoara, Romania |
Delivery centre |
610 |
|||
Brasov, Romania |
Delivery centre |
355 |
|||
Western and Northern Europe: |
|||||
London, United Kingdom |
Office premises |
1,033 |
|||
Frankfurt, Germany |
Office premises |
551 |
|||
Hilversum, Netherlands |
Office premises |
296 |
|||
Denmark, Copenhagen |
Office premises |
64 |
|||
Latin America: |
|||||
Medellin, Colombia |
Delivery centre |
5,909 |
|||
Bogota, Colombia |
Delivery centre |
3,816 |
|||
Rosario, Argentina |
Delivery centre |
1,939 |
|||
Caracas, Venezuela |
Delivery centre |
929 |
|||
Rio Negro, Uruguay |
Delivery centre |
563 |
|||
Buenos Aires, Argentina |
Delivery centre |
515 |
|||
Colonia, Uruguay |
Delivery centre |
452 |
|||
Parana, Argentina |
Delivery centre |
302 |
|||
North America: |
|||||
New Jersey, USA |
Office premises |
749 |
|||
New York, USA |
Office premises |
478 |
|||
Washington, USA |
Office premises |
397 |
|||
Atlanta, USA |
Office premises |
18 |
Our People
As of June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017 we had 5,754, 4,819 and 3,744 employees, respectively. We have collective bargaining agreements with our employees in Romania. We believe our employee relations are good and we have not experienced any work stoppages. We vet our employees in accordance with the BS7858 screening standards.
52
At each date shown, we had the following employees, broken out by department and geography:
As of June 30, |
||||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
||||||
Function: |
||||||||
Employees Involved in Delivery of Our Services |
5,197 |
4,368 |
3,433 |
|||||
Selling, General and Administrative |
557 |
451 |
311 |
|||||
Total |
5,754 |
4,819 |
3,744 |
Employees by geography |
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, |
|||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
||||||
Western Europe |
254 |
232 |
233 |
|||||
Central Europe - EU Countries |
3,062 |
2,578 |
2,314 |
|||||
Sub-total: EU Countries (Western & Central Europe) |
3,316 |
2,810 |
2,547 |
|||||
Central Europe - Non-EU Countries |
1,583 |
1,279 |
1,073 |
|||||
Latin America(1)
|
780 |
665 |
68 |
|||||
North America |
75 |
65 |
56 |
|||||
Total |
5,754 |
4,819 |
3,744 |
We believe that our people are our most important asset. We provide Endavans with training to develop their technical and soft skills, in an environment where they are continually challenged and given opportunities to grow as professionals, and with tools and resources to innovate. Endava University and “Pass It On” are key elements of our training and development framework. Endava University provides classroom-based training and “Pass It On” uses apprenticeship and open sharing so that our people can grow by way of collective experiences and knowledge. Our employees also have career coaches to customize their integration into their respective teams and to help visualize their development and future. Through Endava Labs and regular hackathons, our teams are encouraged to express their creativity in using next-generation technologies to build innovative solutions.
We strive to be one of the leading employers of IT professionals in the regions in which we operate. We locate our nearshore delivery centers in countries that not only have abundant IT talent pools, but also offer us an opportunity to be a preferred employer. For example, a majority of our employees are located in Romania, where we have been identified as a top employer for each of the last five years.
We also get involved in initiatives that address social issues and encourage knowledge-sharing beyond our organization in the communities in which we operate. We regularly sponsor technical events and speak at global technical and industry-focused conferences. Our largest initiative consists of internship and graduate programs. By supporting local education, we seek to inspire exploration in engineering and technology.
We believe that we have built an organization deeply committed to helping people succeed and that our culture fosters our core values:
•Openness : We are confident in our abilities, our approach and our people, so we are transparent.
•Thoughtfulness : We care deeply about the success of our people, our clients and the countries in which we operate.
•Adaptability : We embrace change and value differences, enabling us to be successful in complex environments.
53
C. Organizational Structure.
The following diagram illustrates our current corporate structure:
D. Property, Plants and Equipment.
For a discussion of property, plant and equipment, see “Item 4.B—Business Overview—Facilities.”
Item 4A. Unresolved Staff Comments
Not applicable.
Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects
Overview
We are a leading next-generation technology services provider and help accelerate disruption by delivering rapid evolution to enterprises. We aid our clients in finding new ways to interact with their customers and users, enabling them to become more engaging, responsive and efficient. Using Distributed Enterprise Agile at scale, we collaborate with our clients, seamlessly integrating with their teams, catalyzing ideation and delivering robust solutions. Our approach to ideation comprises an empathy for user needs, curiosity, creativity and a deep understanding of technologies. From proof of concept, to prototype, to production, we use our engineering expertise to deliver enterprise platforms capable of handling millions of transactions per day. Our people, whom we call Endavans, synthesize creativity, technology and delivery at scale in multi-disciplinary teams, enabling us to support our clients from ideation to production.
Since our founding in 2000, we have expanded from a single office serving clients principally located in the city of London to a global enterprise serving clients across Europe and North America from nearshore delivery centers located in Central Europe and Latin America. We provide services from our nearshore delivery centers, located in two European Union countries – Romania and Bulgaria, three other Central European countries – North Macedonia, Moldova and Serbia, and four countries in Latin America – Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay and Venezuela. We have close-to-client offices in four Western European countries – Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, as
54
well as in the United States. As of June 30, 2019, we had 5,754 employees, approximately 53.2% of whom work in nearshore delivery centers in European Union countries. As of June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017 we had 5,754, 4,819 and 3,744 employees, respectively. The breakdown of our employees by geography is as follows for the periods presented:
Employees by geography |
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, |
|||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
||||||
Western Europe |
254 |
232 |
233 |
|||||
Central Europe - EU Countries |
3,062 |
2,578 |
2,314 |
|||||
Sub-total: EU Countries (Western & Central Europe) |
3,316 |
2,810 |
2,547 |
|||||
Central Europe - Non-EU Countries |
1,583 |
1,279 |
1,073 |
|||||
Latin America(1)
|
780 |
665 |
68 |
|||||
North America |
75 |
65 |
56 |
|||||
Total |
5,754 |
4,819 |
3,744 |
________________
(1) |
The increase from 2017 to 2018 in Latin America headcount includes 527 employees acquired in connection with our acquisition of Velocity Partners, LLC, or Velocity Partners, in December 2017. |
As of June 30, 2019, we had 275 active clients, which we define as clients who paid us for services over the preceding 12-month period, principally operating in the Payments and Financial Services vertical and Technology, Media & Telecommunications, or TMT, vertical. Worldpay was our largest client for each of the last three fiscal years, contributing 9.8%, 10.8% and 13.0% of our total revenue in fiscal 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively. We served clients in the geographies and key industry verticals, which are Payments and Financial Services, TMT and Other, as follows for the periods presented (by revenue):
Revenue by geography |
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, |
||||||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
|||||||||
(in thousands) |
|||||||||||
North America |
£ |
79,231 |
£ |
45,600 |
£ |
25,944 |
|||||
Europe |
79,186 |
73,442 |
53,486 |
||||||||
United Kingdom |
129,513 |
98,571 |
79,938 |
||||||||
Total |
£ |
287,930 |
£ |
217,613 |
£ |
159,368 |
Revenue by industry vertical |
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, |
||||||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
|||||||||
(in thousands) |
|||||||||||
Payments and Financial Services |
£ |
152,179 |
£ |
123,675 |
£ |
91,056 |
|||||
TMT |
78,888 |
61,095 |
48,534 |
||||||||
Other |
56,863 |
32,843 |
19,778 |
||||||||
Total |
£ |
287,930 |
£ |
217,613 |
£ |
159,368 |
We have achieved significant growth in recent periods. For the fiscal years ended June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017,our revenue was £287.9 million, £217.6 million and £159.4 million, respectively, representing a compound annual growth rate of 34.4% over the three fiscal year period. We generated 45.0%, 45.3%, 50.2% of our revenue for the fiscal years ended June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively, from clients located in United Kingdom; we generated 27.5%, 33.7% and 33.6% of our revenue in each of those fiscal years, respectively, from clients located in Europe; and we generated 27.5%, 21.0% and 16.2% of our revenue in each of those fiscal years, respectively, from clients located in North America. Our revenue growth rate at constant currency, which is a measure that is not calculated and presented
55
in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS, for the fiscal years ended June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017 was 31.1%, 37.2% and 28.5%, respectively. Over the last five fiscal years, 88.8% of our revenue, on average, each fiscal year came from clients who purchased services from us during the prior fiscal year.
Our profit before taxes was £30.1 million, £24.7 million and £21.7 million for the fiscal years ended June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017, and our profit before taxes as a percentage of revenue was 13.6%, 11.3% and 10.5%, respectively, for the same periods. Our adjusted profit before taxes margin, or Adjusted PBT Margin, which is a measure that is not calculated and presented in accordance with IFRS, was 18.0%, 15.4% and 15.8%, respectively, for the fiscal years ended June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017. See notes 1 and 6 in the section of this Annual Report on Form 20-F titled “Selected Financial Data—Non-IFRS Measures and Other Management Metrics” for a reconciliation of revenue growth rate to revenue growth rate at constant currency and for a reconciliation of profit before taxes to Adjusted PBT, respectively, the most directly comparable financial measures calculated and presented in accordance with IFRS.
Recent Acquisitions
We have in the past pursued and plan to selectively pursue in the future acquisitions focused on augmenting our core capabilities to enhance our expertise in new technologies and industry verticals and increase our geographic reach, while preserving our corporate culture and sustainably managing our growth.
In September 2016, we acquired Integrated Systems Development Corporation, or ISDC, for cash consideration of £8.9 million. ISDC was headquartered in the Netherlands and provided us with additional delivery center capacity in Romania and Bulgaria, as well as a close-to-client presence to the Netherlands.
In December 2017, we acquired Velocity Partners for total consideration of £45.9 million, which consisted of (1) cash consideration in the amount of £33.0 million, of which £4.4 million was held back to secure indemnification obligations, (2) contingent consideration of £11.7 million, which may be paid in the form of equity, cash or a combination of equity and cash, depending on a number of conditions and (3) £1.2 million representing amounts due to the former equity holders of Velocity Partners if we receive certain future tax refunds. The fair value of the aggregate consideration on the acquisition date was estimated at £44.9 million. In addition, in connection with the acquisition, we agreed to pay certain continuing employees of Velocity Partners up to £3.7 million in the form of equity or cash, depending on a number of conditions, as well as equity awards with respect to 30,000 Class A ordinary shares. Velocity Partners was headquartered in the United States and increased our North American client base and added nearshore delivery centers in Latin America.
Key Factors Affecting Our Performance
We believe that the key factors affecting our performance and results of operations include our ability to:
Expand Relationships with Existing Clients
We are focused on continuing to expand our relationships with existing clients by helping them solve new problems and become more engaging, responsive and efficient. We have a demonstrated track record of expanding our work with clients after an initial engagement. In the 2018 and 2019 fiscal years, the number of clients that have a minimum annual spend with us of at least £1.0 million has grown from 46 to 63, respectively and the average spend of our 10 largest clients was £9.0 million in the 2018 fiscal year and £10.9 million in the 2019 fiscal year. Our ability to increase sales to existing clients will depend on a number of factors, including the level of clients’ satisfaction with our services, changes in clients’ strategic priorities, changes in key client personnel or strategic transactions involving clients, pricing, competition and overall economic conditions.
Add New Clients Across Industry Verticals and Geographies
As of June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017, we had 275, 258 and 188 active clients, respectively. We believe that we have a significant opportunity to add new clients in our existing core verticals and geographies, and to expand our client base to new verticals and geographies.
We have established ourselves as a leader in delivering end-to-end ideation-to-production services in the Payments and Financial Services and TMT verticals. Clients in the Payments and Financial Services vertical contributed to 52.9%
56
and 56.8% of our total revenue in the 2019 and 2018 fiscal years, respectively. Clients in the TMT vertical contributed 27.4% and 28.1% of our total revenue in the 2019 and 2018 fiscal years, respectively. Clients in other verticals contributed 19.7% and 15.1% of our total revenue in the 2019 and 2018 fiscal years, respectively. We believe that we continue to have a significant untapped opportunity in these sectors and we plan to leverage this experience to expand our vertical reach.
Attract, Retain and Efficiently Utilize Talent
We believe that our people are our most important asset. We grew our average operational headcount by 24.4% in the 2018 fiscal year and 23.9% in the 2019 fiscal year. We provide Endavans with training to develop their technical and soft skills, in an environment where they are continually challenged and given opportunities to grow as professionals, and with tools and resources to innovate. However, there is significant competition for technology professionals in the geographic regions in which our delivery centers are located and we expect that such competition is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Further, in order to maintain our gross margin, we must maintain favorable utilization rates among our existing IT professionals, which depends on our ability to integrate and train new employees, efficiently transition employees from completed projects to new assignments, forecast demand for our services, deploy employees with appropriate skills and seniority to projects and manage attrition rates.
Expand Our Nearshore Delivery Capacity
We believe that Distributed Enterprise Agile at scale requires that we have teams based in locations with similar time zones to those of our clients since our delivery teams are in constant dialogue and interaction with our clients. While we believe that we have sufficient delivery center capacity to address our near-term needs and opportunities, as we continue to expand our relationships with existing clients and attract new clients, we will need to expand our teams at existing delivery centers and open new delivery centers in nearshore locations with an abundance of technical talent. However, we compete for talented individuals not only with other companies in our industry, but also with companies in other industries, and there is a limited pool of individuals who have the skills and training needed to help us grow.
Continue to Innovate
We believe that our creative skills, deep digital technical engineering capabilities and leadership in next-generation technologies have allowed us to grow our business and maintain favorable gross margins. Sustaining our competitive differentiation will depend on our ability to continue to innovate and remain at the forefront of emerging technology trends.
Management Metrics
We regularly monitor a number of financial and operating metrics to evaluate our business, measure our performance, identify trends affecting our business, formulate financial projections and make strategic decisions. Our management metrics may be calculated in a different manner than similarly titled metrics used by other companies.
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, |
|||||||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
|||||||||
(pounds in thousands) |
|||||||||||
Revenue growth rate at constant currency |
31.1 |
% |
37.2 |
% |
28.5 |
% |
|||||
Average number of employees involved in delivery of our services |
4,902 |
3,957 |
3,181 |
||||||||
Revenue concentration |
37.7 |
% |
41.5 |
% |
49.1 |
% |
|||||
Number of large clients |
63 |
46 |
34 |
||||||||
Adjusted profit before taxes margin |
18.0 |
% |
15.4 |
% |
15.8 |
% |
|||||
Adjusted free cash flow |
£ |
29,806 |
£ |
28,727 |
£ |
11,186 |
57
Revenue Growth Rate at Constant Currency
We monitor our revenue growth rate at constant currency. As the impact of foreign currency exchange rates is highly variable and difficult to predict, we believe revenue growth rate at constant currency allows us to better understand the underlying business trends and performance of our ongoing operations on a period-over-period basis. We calculate revenue growth rate at constant currency by translating revenue from entities reporting in foreign currencies into British Pounds using the comparable foreign currency exchange rates from the prior period. For example, the average rates in effect for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2018 were used to convert revenue for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2019 and the revenue for the comparable prior period ended June 30, 2018, rather than the actual exchange rates in effect during the respective period. Revenue growth rate at constant currency is not a measure calculated in accordance with IFRS. See note 1 in the section of this Annual Report on Form 20-F titled “Selected Financial Data—Non-IFRS Measures and Other Management Metrics” for a reconciliation of revenue growth rate at constant currency revenue growth rate, the most directly comparable measure calculated and presented in accordance with IFRS.
Average Number of Employees Involved in Delivery of Our Services
We monitor our average number of operational employees because we believe it gives us visibility into the size of both our revenue-producing base and our most significant cost base, which in turn allows us to better understand changes in our utilization rates and gross margins on a period-over-period basis. We calculate average number of operational employees as the average of our number of full-time employees involved in delivery of our services on the last day of each month in the relevant period.
Revenue Concentration
We monitor our revenue concentration to better understand our dependence on large clients on a period-over-period basis and to monitor our success in diversifying our revenue base. We define revenue concentration as the percent of our total revenue derived from our 10 largest clients by revenue in each period presented.
Number of Large Clients
We monitor our number of large clients to better understand our progress in winning large contracts on a period-over-period basis. We define number of large clients as the number of clients from whom we generated more than £1.0 million of revenue in the prior 12-month period.
Adjusted Profit Before Taxes Margin
We monitor our adjusted profit before taxes margin, or Adjusted PBT Margin, to better understand our ability to manage operational costs, to evaluate our core operating performance and trends and to develop future operating plans. In particular, we believe that the exclusion of certain expenses in calculating Adjusted PBT Margin facilitates comparisons of our operating performance on a period-over-period basis. Our Adjusted PBT Margin is our Adjusted PBT, which is our profit before taxes adjusted to exclude the impact of share-based compensation expense, amortization of acquired intangible assets, realized and unrealized foreign currency exchange gains and losses and initial public offering expenses incurred (all of which are non-cash other than realized foreign currency exchange gains and losses and initial public offering expenses), as a percentage of our total revenue. We do not consider these excluded items to be indicative of our core operating performance. Adjusted PBT Margin is not a measure calculated in accordance with IFRS. See note 5 in the section of this Annual Report on Form 20-F titled “Selected Financial Data—Non-IFRS Measures and Other Management Metrics” for a reconciliation of Adjusted PBT to profit before taxes, the most directly comparable financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with IFRS.
Adjusted Free Cash Flow
We monitor our adjusted free cash flow to better understand and evaluate our liquidity position and to develop future operating plans. Our adjusted free cash flow is our net cash provided by (used in) operating activities, plus grant received, less purchases of non-current tangible and intangible assets. For a discussion of grant received, see “—Components of Results of Operations—Cost of Sales” below. Adjusted free cash flow is not a measure calculated in accordance with IFRS. See note 6 in the section of this Annual Report on Form 20-F titled “Selected Financial Data—Non-IFRS Measures and Other Management Metrics” for a reconciliation of adjusted free cash flow to net cash
58
provided by (used in) operating activities, the most directly comparable financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with IFRS.
A. Operating Results.
The key elements of our results of operations include:
Revenue
We generate revenue primarily from the provision of our services and recognize revenue in accordance with IFRS 15, “Revenue from Contracts with Customers”. Revenue is measured at fair value of the consideration received, excluding discounts, rebates, taxes and duties. We enter into master services agreements, or MSAs, with our clients, which provide a framework for services and statements of work to define the scope, timing, pricing terms and performance criteria of each individual engagement under the MSA. Our services are generally performed under time-and-material based contracts (where materials consist of travel and out-of-pocket expenses), fixed-price contracts and managed service contracts.
In the 2019, 2018 and 2017 fiscal years, our 10 largest clients contributed, in the aggregate, £108.7 million, or 37.7%, £90.4 million, or 41.5%, and £78.2 million, or 49.1%, of our total revenue, respectively. The following table shows the number of our clients by revenue on a trailing 12-month basis for the periods presented:
Revenue |
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, |
|||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
||||||
Over £5 Million |
15 |
8 |
5 |
|||||
£2 - £5 Million |
26 |
22 |
17 |
|||||
£1 - £2 Million |
22 |
16 |
12 |
|||||
Less than £1 Million |
212 |
212 |
154 |
|||||
Total |
275 |
258 |
188 |
Cost of Sales
Direct cost of sales consists primarily of personnel costs, including salary, bonuses, share-based compensation, benefits and travel expenses for our employees directly involved in delivery of our services, as well as software licenses and other costs that relate directly to the delivery of services. Allocated cost of sales consists of the portion of depreciation and amortization expense and property costs, including operating lease expense, related to delivery of our services. Our cost of sales is reported net of any income recognized from research and development credits and government grants arising from past or future operating activities where those activities are related directly to the delivery of services. We expect our cost of sales to remain relatively stable as a percentage of revenue.
In June 2013, we were awarded a grant of Romanian leu, or RON, 41.4 million (£7.94 million) from the Romanian Ministry of Finance for the creation of 500 new jobs in Romania between June 2013 and December 2015, subject to certain conditions, including continuing the newly created jobs for a five year period. To date, we have submitted claims and received £7.5 million under the grant. Claims are subject to audit by the Romanian authorities and secured until the end of the five-year maintenance period by a letter of credit. We recognize the income from the grant over the five-year period we are required to maintain the positions as an offset to cost of sales. The receipt of a cash payment under the grant is recognized in the statement of cash flows as cash from a financing activity. To the extent the amount we received is greater or less than the amount recognized, the difference is recorded as working capital.
We are also eligible to receive credits from the United Kingdom taxing authorities for qualifying research and development expenditures on an annual basis. The credits are based on a fixed percentage (11% prior to December 31, 2017 and 12% thereafter) of the cost of work that is directed and supervised from the United Kingdom and achieves an advance in technology that was uncertain at the outset of the work. We recognize the income from these credits as an offset to cost of sales. The receipt of credits is recognized in the statement of cash flows as cash from an operating activity.
59
Gross Profit
Gross profit and gross margin, or gross profit as a percentage of total revenue, has been, and will continue to be, affected by various factors, including wage inflation and the impact of foreign exchange in the countries in which we operate.
Selling, General and Administrative Expenses
Personnel costs, including salaries, bonuses, sales commissions and benefits are the most significant component of selling, general and administrative expenses. Included in selling, general and administrative expenses relating to sales and marketing expense are costs related to marketing programs and travel. Marketing programs consist of advertising, events, corporate communications and brand-building activities. Included in other selling, general and administrative expenses to general and administrative expense are external legal, accounting and other professional fees, as well as acquisition-related transaction costs. Selling, general and administrative expenses also include facilities-related and information technology hardware and software costs. Selling, general and administrative expenses includes share-based compensation expense for employees in our selling, general and administrative functions. Selling, general and administrative expenses also includes allocated operating lease expense and depreciation and amortization, which consists primarily of depreciation of property, plant and equipment, as well as the amortization of software and licenses and intangible assets acquired through acquisitions (client relationships and non-compete agreements).
Net Finance (Costs)/Income
Finance costs consist primarily of interest expense on borrowings, unwinding of the discount on acquisition holdbacks and contingent consideration, losses on disposal of available-for-sale financial assets, dividends on preference shares classified as liabilities and reclassifications of amounts previously recognized in other comprehensive income. Borrowing costs that are not directly attributable to the acquisition, construction or production of a qualifying asset are recognized in profit or loss using the effective interest method. Finance income consists of interest income on funds invested. Interest income is recognized as it accrues in profit or loss, using the effective interest method.
Net finance (costs)/income also reflects the net effect of realized and unrealized foreign currency exchange gains and losses.
Provision for Income Taxes
We are subject to income taxes in the United Kingdom, Romania, the United States and numerous other jurisdictions. Our provision for income taxes, which is reflected on our statement of comprehensive income as “tax on profit on ordinary activities,” consists primarily of liabilities for taxes due to, or potential claims from, tax authorities in the jurisdictions in which we operate. Calculation of current tax is based on tax rates and tax laws that have been enacted or substantively enacted at the end of the applicable reporting period.
Our effective tax rates differ from the statutory rate applicable to us primarily due to: differences between domestic and foreign jurisdiction tax rates; tax credits and non-taxable items; non-deductible share-based compensation expenses; and other non-deductible expenses. Changes in the geographic mix of revenue can also cause our overall effective tax rate to vary from period to period. Tax expense is recognized in profit or loss based on the sum of deferred tax and current tax not recognized in other comprehensive income or directly in equity
Critical Accounting Policies and Significant Judgements and Estimates
We prepare our consolidated financial statements in accordance with IFRS, which require us to make judgments, estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in those financial statements and accompanying notes. We base our estimates and assumptions on historical experience and other factors that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. These estimates and underlying assumptions are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Although we believe that the estimates we use are reasonable, due to the inherent uncertainty involved in making those estimates, actual results reported in future periods could differ from those estimates.
Some of our accounting policies require higher degrees of judgment than others in their application. We believe that the following accounting policies involve a high degree of judgment and complexity. Accordingly, these are the policies we believe are the most critical to aid in fully understanding and evaluating our consolidated financial condition and results of our operations. See note 3 to our consolidated financial statements appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 20-F for a description of our other significant accounting policies.
60
Business Combinations
Business acquisitions are accounted for using the acquisition method. The results of businesses acquired in a business combination are included in our consolidated financial statements from the date of the acquisition. Purchase accounting results in assets and liabilities of an acquired business being recorded at their estimated fair values on the acquisition date. Any excess consideration over the fair value of assets acquired and liabilities assumed is recognized as goodwill.
We perform valuations of assets acquired and liabilities assumed on each acquisition accounted for as a business combination and allocate the purchase price to the tangible and intangible assets acquired and liabilities assumed based on our best estimate of fair value. We determine the appropriate useful life of intangible assets by performing an analysis of cash flows based on historical experience of the acquired businesses. Intangible assets are amortized over their estimated useful lives based on the pattern in which the economic benefits associated with the asset are expected to be consumed, which to date has approximated the straight-line method of amortization.
Any contingent consideration payable is measured at fair value at the acquisition date. If the contingent consideration is classified as equity, it is not re-measured and settlement is accounted for within equity. Otherwise, subsequent changes in the fair value of contingent consideration are recognized in profit and loss.
Transaction costs associated with business combinations are expensed as incurred and are included in selling, general and administrative expenses.
Share-Based Compensation
We grant share incentive awards to certain of our employees and directors. These compensation arrangements are settled in equity, or in certain cases at our discretion, in cash, at a predetermined price and generally vest over a period of up to five years and, in certain cases, vest in full on a liquidity event involving our company. All vested share incentive awards have a term of five years before expiration. We measure share-based awards at the grant date based on the fair value of the award and we recognize it as a compensation expense over the vesting period. We determine the fair value of our share options using the Black-Scholes option-pricing model.
The Black-Scholes option pricing model requires the input of subjective assumptions, including assumptions about the expected life of share-based awards, share price volatility, risk-free interest rate, expected dividend yield and the fair value of our ordinary shares. Prior to the completion of our initial public offering, we relied, in part, on valuation reports prepared by unrelated third-party valuation firms to assist us in valuing our share-based awards.
In conducting these valuations, the third-party firm considered objective and subjective factors that it believed to be relevant for each valuation conducted, including its best estimate of our business condition, prospects, and operating performance at each valuation date. Within the valuations performed, a range of factors, assumptions, and methodologies were used. The significant factors considered included:
• the prices at which our ordinary shares were transferred in contemporaneous arm’s length transactions;
• the lack of an active public market for our ordinary shares;
• the material risks related to our business and industry;
• our business strategy;
• the market performance of publicly traded companies in the technology services sectors; and
• the likelihood of achieving a liquidity event for the holders of our ordinary shares, such as an initial public offering, given prevailing market conditions.
The fair value of our ordinary shares will be determined based on the closing price of our ADSs on the New York Stock Exchange.
Recent Accounting Pronouncements
See note 2 to our consolidated financial statements appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 20-F for a description of the application of new and revised international financial reporting standards.
61
Results of Operations
The following table sets forth our consolidated statements of comprehensive income data for the periods presented:
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, |
|||||||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
|||||||||
(in thousands) |
|||||||||||
Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income Data: |
|||||||||||
Revenue |
£ |
287,930 |
£ |
217,613 |
£ |
159,368 |
|||||
Cost of sales: |
|||||||||||
Direct cost of sales(1)
|
(174,152 |
) |
(132,775 |
) |
(98,853 |
) |
|||||
Allocated cost of sales |
(14,951 |
) |
(12,668 |
) |
(9,907 |
) |
|||||
Total Cost of sales |
(189,103 |
) |
(145,443 |
) |
(108,760 |
) |
|||||
Gross profit |
98,827 |
72,170 |
50.608 |
||||||||
Selling, general and administrative expenses(1)
|
(65,857 |
) |
(46,737 |
) |
(27,551 |
) |
|||||
Operating profit |
32,970 |
25,433 |
23,057 |
||||||||
Net finance (costs)/income |
(2,870 |
) |
(783 |
) |
(1,357 |
) |
|||||
Profit before tax |
30,100 |
24,650 |
21,700 |
||||||||
Tax on profit on ordinary activities |
(6,093 |
) |
(5,675 |
) |
(4,868 |
) |
|||||
Net profit |
£ |
24,007 |
£ |
18,975 |
£ |
16,832 |
________________
(1) |
Includes share-based compensation expense as follows: |
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, |
|||||||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
|||||||||
(in thousands) |
|||||||||||
Direct cost of sales |
£ |
5,724 |
£ |
1,006 |
£ |
560 |
|||||
Selling, general and administrative expenses |
6,298 |
499 |
294 |
||||||||
Total |
£ |
12,022 |
£ |
1,505 |
£ |
854 |
62
The following table sets forth our consolidated statements of comprehensive income data expressed as a percentage of total revenue:
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, |
||||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
||||||
Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income Data: |
||||||||
Revenue |
100 |
% |
100 |
% |
100 |
% |
||
Cost of sales: |
||||||||
Direct cost of sales |
(60.5 |
)% |
(61.0 |
)% |
(62.0 |
)% |
||
Allocated cost of sales |
(5.2 |
)% |
(5.8 |
)% |
(6.2 |
)% |
||
Total Cost of sales |
(65.7 |
)% |
(66.8 |
)% |
(68.2 |
)% |
||
Gross profit |
34.3 |
% |
33.2 |
% |
31.8 |
% |
||
Selling, general and administrative expenses |
(22.9 |
)% |
(21.5 |
)% |
(17.3 |
)% |
||
Operating profit |
11.5 |
% |
11.7 |
% |
14.5 |
% |
||
Net finance (costs)/income |
(1.0 |
)% |
(0.4 |
)% |
(0.9 |
)% |
||
Profit before tax |
10.5 |
% |
11.3 |
% |
13.6 |
% |
||
Provision for income tax |
(2.1 |
)% |
(2.6 |
)% |
(3.1 |
)% |
||
Net profit |
8.3 |
% |
8.7 |
% |
10.6 |
% |
Comparison of the Years Ended June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017
Revenue
Year Ended June 30, |
% Change |
||||||||||||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
2019 vs.
2018
|
2018 vs.
2017
|
|||||||||||||
(pounds in thousands) |
|||||||||||||||||
Revenue |
£ |
287,930 |
£ |
217,613 |
£ |
159,368 |
32.3 |
% |
36.5 |
% |
2019 Compared to 2018. Revenue for 2019 was £287.9 million, an increase of £70.3 million, or 32.3%, over 2018. In constant currency terms, revenue grew by 31.1% over 2018. We achieved significant growth in revenue across all verticals. Revenue from clients in the Payments and Financial Services vertical increased by £28.5 million, or 23.0%, to £152.2 million in 2019 from £123.7 million in 2018. Revenue from clients in the TMT vertical increased by £17.8 million, or 29.1%, to £78.9 million in 2019 from £61.1 million in 2018. Revenue from clients in our Other vertical also grew significantly, increasing by £24.0 million, or 73.1%, to £56.9 million in 2019 from £32.8 million in 2018. Revenue also grew across all geographies. Revenue from clients based in Europe increased by £5.7 million, or 7.8%, to £79.2 million in 2019 from £73.4 million in 2018. Revenue from clients based in the United Kingdom increased by £30.9 million, or 31.4%, to £129.5 million in 2019 from £98.6 million in 2018. Revenue from clients based in North America increased by £33.6 million, or 73.8%, to £79.2 million in 2019 from £45.6 million in 2018. Revenue from our top 10 clients in 2019 increased by £18.3 million, or 20.3%, to £108.7 million compared to £90.4 million in revenue from our top 10 clients in 2018.
2018 Compared to 2017. Revenue for 2018 was £217.6 million, an increase of £58.2 million, or 36.5%, over 2017. In constant currency terms, revenue grew by 37.2% over 2017. We achieved significant growth in revenue across all verticals. Revenue from clients in the Payments and Financial Services vertical increased by £32.6 million, or 35.8%, to £123.7 in 2018 from £91.1 million in 2017. Revenue from clients in the TMT vertical increased by £12.6 million, or 25.9%, to £61.1 million in 2018 from £48.5 million in 2017. Revenue from clients in our Other vertical also grew significantly, increasing by £13.1 million, or 66.1%, to £32.8 million in 2018 from £19.8 million in 2017. The acquired operations of Velocity Partners contributed £15.3 million of revenue in 2018, particularly within our TMT vertical and in North America. Revenue also grew across all geographies. Revenue from clients based in Europe increased by £19.9 million, or 37.3%, to £73.4 million in 2018 from £53.5 million in 2017. Revenue from clients based in the United Kingdom increased by £18.6 million, or 23.3%, to £98.6 million in 2018 from £79.9 million in 2017. Revenue from clients based in North America increased by £19.7 million, or 75.8%, to £45.6 million in 2018 from £25.9 million in 2017, principally due to our acquisition of Velocity Partners and due to growth in revenue from clients in the Payments and Financial Services vertical in North America. 85.9% of our 2018 revenue came from clients who were also
63
our clients during 2017. Revenue from our top 10 clients in 2018 increased by £12.2 million, or 15.5%, to £90.4 million compared to £78.2 million in revenue from our top 10 clients in 2017.
Cost of Sales
Year Ended June 30, |
% Change |
||||||||||||||||
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
2019 vs.
2018
|