Company Announcements

26 January 2022

FDM GROUP (HOLDINGS) plc ("FDM GROUP", "FDM" or "THE GROUP")

YEAR END TRADING UPDATE

FDM Group, a global professional services provider with a focus on Information Technology, today provides a trading update for the year to 31 December 2021, ahead of its full year results, which will be released on 17 March 2022.

Group Trading in the Period and Closing Balance Sheet

The Group performed well in the second half of the year, with our UK and APAC operations showing the highest growth in Mounties deployed, and the Board expects the Group's financial performance for the year to 31 December 2021 to be comfortably in line with its expectations.  

Revenue for the year to 31 December 2021 is expected to be flat in comparison to the prior year at £267.4 million (2020: £267.7 million), up 2% on a constant currency basis.

The Group's balance sheet remains strong with closing cash balances of £53.1 million (2020: £64.7 million), after dividend payments made during the year of £46.8 million (2020: £20.1 million).  The Group has no debt.

The Group ended the year with 4,033 Mounties placed with clients (2020: 3,580), an increase of 13% on the prior year. The UK closed with 1,806 Mounties deployed (2020: 1,574)¹; North America closed with 1,095 Mounties deployed (2020: 1,086), with a continuing good performance from our Canadian operations and more subdued performance in the US, where we are introducing a number of new initiatives that will enable us to respond better to strong levels of demand for our Mounties; APAC closed with 880 Mounties deployed (2020: 633); and EMEA closed with 252 Mounties deployed (2020: 287)¹ after the completion of a major client project in Luxembourg during the second half of the year.

Demand for Mounties was strong during the year across the majority of our markets. To meet this growth in demand, 2,410 Mounties were trained during the year (2020: 1,341 training completions; 2019: 2,115 training completions) which is the highest number in the Group's history, and the Group ended the year with a record number in training.

¹Reflecting internal management and reporting, Ireland Mounties, previously included within UK and Ireland, are as of 31 December 2021 included within EMEA. 31 December 2020 comparative figures have been adjusted for 51 Ireland Mounties deployed as at that date (31 December 2021: 20 Mounties deployed).  

Outlook     

Rod Flavell, Group CEO, commented:

"FDM made good progress in 2021, performing comfortably in line with the Board's expectations.

The Group continued with its significant investment in Academy transformation and accreditation programmes to underpin the future growth of the business, and the numbers of Mounties trained during the year and of trainees at the year-end were both a record high.   

As we enter the current year our client engagement remains very high, demand for Mounties in all territories is robust and we are achieving pleasing levels of deal volumes.

In 2022 we target a significant increase in the numbers of Mounties that we train and deploy. We plan to accelerate our internal staff recruitment and our internal development programmes, with a particular focus on our sales and Academy training teams.  Our international expansion continues, including good activity levels in our nascent location of Poland.

The Group is well placed to deliver a good performance in 2022 and long-term growth thereafter."   

This announcement may contain statements which constitute 'forward-looking statements'. Although FDM Group believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that these expectations will prove to have been correct. Because these statements involve risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements.

ENDS

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