Interactive Investor

Outsourcery spells out recovery plan

24th September 2014 13:20

Lee Wild from interactive investor

It's been anything but plain sailing for cloud service provider Outsourcery (OUT) since listing on AIM at 110p in May last year. The shares have slumped to 15p. Set up by Dragon's Den star Piers Linney in 2007, revenue has been slow in coming and investors have been put off by funding fears. And while the business plan does seem credible, investing here requires a leap of faith.

Linney certainly remains bullish. "In the next 18-24 months we believe this with be a valuable business, worth much more than the IPO price," he told Interactive Investor.

And both Linney and business partner Simon Newton have invested heavily in the company. They made over £1 million each when they sold down their stakes at the IPO, but have since invested over £200,000 apiece in a recent net £1.5 million placing at 20p. They've also agreed a wage cut which will save £520,000 over the next 12 months, although lucrative share options sweeten the pill.

That placing and salary sacrifice was part of a package of measures worth £4.5 million, which also included £1 million of staff cuts and debt rescheduling to generate £1.5 million of free cash flow. It also means Outsourcery will not need to raise any more cash to get to profitability, Linney told us. He expects monthly run rate break-even and operational positive cash flow in 2015.

Clearly, there have been problems. Partners have come on stream much slower than expected, always an issue when dealing with big organisations. That explains modest revenue of just £3.4 million in the six months to June 2014, which includes no contribution from key strategic partners.

With hefty admin costs of £4.8 million, Outsourcery made an underlying pre-tax loss of £3.6 million during the period. But it's the top line that's important here. Its main cost is people, and spend doesn't increase much whether the business is generating sales of £1 million or £50 million.

"The model isn't broken, it's just delayed," says Linney. "If Vodafone and Microsoft thought we weren't special they wouldn't be working with us."

Outsourcery focuses on the delivery of services based on Microsoft technologies; things like servers and emails. It designs and deploys cloud services for partners, which it then bills monthly based on usage and storage. Others are charged a monthly fee. Contracts are typically for three to seven years.

Interestingly, the company is also working with Microsoft and Dell on highly secure cloud services for central government. Linney tells us that Outsourcery is one of only two UK companies capable of doing this on scale, and hopes to generate revenue from it during the first quarter of 2015.

House broker Investec Securities is obviously a big backer of Outsourcery. But even it admits its own forecasts "require material deal traction" in 2015. "As soon as this deal flow builds, sentiment around the sales potential and balance sheet strength should improve."

"Until we see evidence of this we expect the stock to continue to be volatile, but retain our Buy based on the long term potential of the business," it adds, although the target price is slashed from a widely ambitious 130p to a more modest 71p based on an enterprise value-to-sales ratio of 2.

Keep an eye on this one. As soon as there's evidence of greater up-take then the shares could fly, but it's clearly not one for widows and orphans.

This article is for information and discussion purposes only and does not form a recommendation to invest or otherwise. The value of an investment may fall. The investments referred to in this article may not be suitable for all investors, and if in doubt, an investor should seek advice from a qualified investment adviser.