StatPro Group plc, (AIM:SOG), the AIM listed provider of portfolio analysis and asset pricing services for the global asset management industry, will be holding its Annual General Meeting today at 6pm.
At the meeting, Carl Bacon, Chairman of the Group will make the following statement on the Group's progress in the first quarter of the year ending 31 December 2013:
Current Trading
Trading in the first quarter of 2013 was in line with expectations, both at the revenue level and against our operational and profit targets. We continue to make good progress towards our strategy of becoming a purely cloud-based analytics service provider, capitalising on cloud computing to enter new regions and market tiers, as well as transforming our existing customer base.
StatPro Revolution
We are pleased with the progress of our cloud service, StatPro Revolution, increasing both customer numbers and the functionality and data coverage of the solution. The sales pipeline for StatPro Revolution continues to build and as at the end of March 2013 we had 178 clients for StatPro Revolution (end December 2012: 156). We are also making good progress with fund administrator partners, increasing the number of partners to 25 (end December 2012: 21). We continue to work with these partners on their promotion of the service through their distribution networks and believe that they will provide an important gateway for future prospects.
As announced in March 2013, following our partner agreement with Interactive Data Corporation, StatPro Revolution now covers 3.2 million assets. In the next release in mid-May, we will offer UCITS IV - Global Exposure module which will be an important compliance tool for clients marketing funds under the European UCITS regulations.
StatPro Revolution Plus and cloud investment
We are progressing well in the development of StatPro Revolution Plus, the cloud-based replacement for StatPro Seven and the first beta release is expected to be launched on schedule in July 2013.
We have increased our spending commitments in line with our strategy to invest in more sales people and marketing activities to promote our cloud solutions, to increase ththe rate of development of new features, and to strengthen the client services team to support our existing and new clients.
Outlook
We believe that the service we offer, through our cloud-based solution StatPro Revolution, provides a compelling story that meets client demands for greater transparency, improved reporting to satisfy new regulations, and as a selling tool, as well as being great value for money.
StatPro made the strategic decision in 2012 to switch to cloud services because of the tremendous growth potential available with this new technology. With a large client base and high levels of recurring revenue, we are able to make a significant level of investment in transforming our business to a pure cloud technology business, while continuing to generate a good margin level and operating cash flow.
Our continuing progress gives the Board confidence in a successful outcome for the year.