SDL.L Regulatory News (SDL)

2 August 2011

SDL PLC

Interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2011

Strong first half performance significantly ahead of prior year and market consensus - successfully executing our Global Information Management strategy.

SDL plc ("SDL" or "the Group"), a leader in the emerging market for Global Information Management (GIM) solutions, is pleased to announce its unaudited interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2011.

Highlights:

·; Excellent first half 2011, both revenue and profit before taxation and amortisation ahead of expectations

·; Headline revenue growth of 18% (17% organic at constant currency)

·; Constant currency growth in all divisions:

o Content Management Technologies - headline revenue growth of 24% (27% at constant currency)

o Language Technologies - headline revenue growth of 33% (15% at constant currency excluding acquisition effects)

o Language Services - headline revenue growth of 12% (14% at constant currency)

·; Cash generated from operations increased from £13.2m (2010 H1) to £18.8m (2011 H1) - up 42%

·; Strong balance sheet - cash balance of £53.4m after maiden dividend of £4.3m and £1.3m acquisition payment

·; Positive new business and pipeline development

·; Expanding investment in growth and innovation

·; Further increase in cross-selling

·; Key drivers of growth continue to be: globalisation of business, exponential growth in digital content and internet penetration

Mark Lancaster, Executive Chairman, commented:

I am pleased to report that SDL has delivered an excellent performance for the first half of 2011, which was significantly ahead of the prior year and ahead of consensus market expectations for both revenue and operating profit.

During the period we have grown revenue in each of our businesses through expansion of established accounts and several new large client wins. Cross-leveraged sales momentum continued to positively impact our performance, as clients seek to build their brand equity and use more tightly integrated end-to-end solutions to accelerate revenue generation - by taking new products to local and international markets more quickly.

The demand environment for our solutions remained sound, emphasising the defensive growth characteristics of SDL through geographic and industry sector diversity. We continued to increase our investment in innovation, reflective of our commitment to invest in statistical machine translation and content management.

Despite the variable economic outlook, based on our positioning and pipeline, we feel confident that our business will continue to deliver further profitable growth in the second half of 2011.

For further information please contact:

About SDL

SDL is the leader in Global Information Management. Global Information Management enables companies to engage with their customers throughout the customer journey -from brand awareness, to sales and after-sales support- and across languages, cultures and channels.

SDL's best-of-breed Web Content Management, eCommerce, Structured Content and Language Technologies, combined with its Language Services drive down the cost of content creation, management, translation and publishing. SDL solutions increase conversion ratios and customer satisfaction through targeted information across all customer touch points.

Global industry leaders who rely on SDL include ABN-Amro, Bosch, Canon, CNH, FICO, GlaxoSmithKline, Hewlett-Packard, KLM, Microsoft, NetApp, Philips, SAP and Sony. SDL has over 1500 enterprise customers, has deployed over 170,000 software licenses and provides access to on-demand portals for 10 million customers per month. It has a global infrastructure of more than 60 offices in 35 countries. For more information, visit www.sdl.com. 

Chairman's Statement

Summary Performance

I am pleased to report that SDL has delivered an excellent performance for the first half of 2011, which was significantly ahead of the prior year and ahead of consensus market expectations for both revenue and operating profit.

Revenue for the first half of 2011 was £111.5 million (2010: £94.5 million) and profit before taxation and amortisation of intangible assets ("PBTA") for the period was £18.7 million (2010: £16.3 million) with profit before taxation of £15.8 million (2010: £12.9 million). Net cash in the business at the end of the period was £53.4 million (end December 2010: £46.6 million). A maiden dividend was paid, amounting to £4.3 million, and a net cash outflow of £1.3million was recorded for the year due to the acquisition of Calamares in May 2011.

Headline revenue growth of 18% comprised a 4% contribution from acquisitions (Xopus and Language Weaver are not included in prior year first half comparatives); a 3% adverse impact from currency movements and 17% organic growth at constant currency. All three operating segments delivered strong revenue growth in the first half of 2011. Overall PBTA margin was marginally reduced year on year at 16.7% (2010 17.3%) due primarily to signalled increased investment in our statistical machine translation business (Language Weaver). PBTA margin, excluding the dilutive impact of Language Weaver, was 18.2%. The business delivered strong cash conversion in the period. Cash generated from operations amounted to £18.8 million (2010: £13.2 million) reflecting a strong receivables performance across the business and sound control of operating cash-flow.

During the period we have grown revenue in each of our businesses through expansion of established accounts and several new large client wins. Cross-leveraged sales momentum continued to positively impact our performance, as clients seek to build their brand equity and use more tightly integrated end-to-end solutions to accelerate revenue generation by taking new products to local and international markets more quickly.

The demand environment for our solutions remained sound, emphasising the defensive growth characteristics of SDL through geographic and industry sector diversity. We continued to increase our investment in innovation, reflective of our commitment to invest in statistical machine translation and content management. The demand environment was strongest in North America, with European markets more mixed. In Asia our revenue was stable and we maintained consistent and continued operations though the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, but these external factors have muted growth in the period in this region. Encouragingly, our pipeline in Asia is shaping up well.

We completed a small but strategically significant Media Asset Management acquisition in May 2011. We consider the use of live and on demand video as an important growth area and the acquisition of Calamares enables our enterprise solutions to include video and rich media management capabilities. Calamares is cloud-based, and supports a broad range of media, systems and devices including web, mobile, internet protocol television (IPTV) and various social media platforms. The technology, now branded SDL Media Manager, has been integrated into the SDL Web Content Management platform, with further integrations to take place across the product suite.

Content Management Technologies (contributing £26.0 million or 23% revenue to the Group and £4.3 million or 23% of the PBTA) (2010: contributing £20.9 million or 22% revenue to the Group and £3.4 million or 21% of the PBTA)

The division comprises Web Content Management Solutions, Structured Content Technologies and eCommerce Technologies, and was strengthened by the acquisition of Calamares in May 2011.

Content Management Technologies continued to drive forward with headline revenue growth of 24% in the first half of 2011, which was derived 1% from acquisition, a negative impact of 4% due to currency movements and with 27% organic growth at constant currency. Revenue performance was particularly strong in the key North American market. New wins in the period included Associated Press, Nationwide Insurance, Sharp Japan, Daikin Industries Japan, Hitachi Data Systems and Life Technologies Corporation. PBTA margin at 16.4% was stable despite targeted growth investment in new client acquisition, innovation and building our eCommerce business in North America. As part of our continued investment in innovation we launched SDL Tridion 2011, a new next generation release building on our established market-leading position in Web Content Management. Enhancements include additional mobile channel capabilities and device recognition, multi-browser support, improved multi-channel campaign management and improved personalisation. We are proud that this product has been named a leader in the recent Forrester Wave report.

We continue to experience strong demand in Structured Content Management, driven by global adoption of the DITA standard for technical authoring, where SDL Trisoft is a market leader. Our value proposition enables organisations to achieve significant savings in content production by managing information in reusable formats. This is augmented by the ability to integrate with other Global Information Management components, to create seamless end-to-end solutions tailored around clients' business needs.

Language Technologies (contributing £19.4 million or 18% revenue to the Group and £2.4 million or 13% of the PBTA) (2010: contributing £14.6 million or 15% revenue to the Group and £1.3 million or 8% of the PBTA)

Headline Language Technologies revenues grew significantly by 33% compared to the first half of 2010, derived 22% from acquisition, a negative impact of 4% from currency movements and 15% organic growth at constant currency. We have started to scale bookings in our commercial Software as a Service (SaaS) revenue stream and we expect this trend to steadily continue, particularly in statistical machine translation. PBTA margin was 12.2%, an uplift of 2.9% in the period, an excellent performance reflecting strong sales growth and operational efficiencies, partially offset by accelerated investment in statistical machine translation.

We are starting to derive tangible benefits from building a single integrated global management team for Language Technologies. Sales capacity has been increased, with notable wins including Pepperl & Fuchs, Wolf Oil, China Eastern Airlines, China Nuclear Power and Denso Japan.

The integration of Language Weaver with other SDL businesses and technologies is complete. SDL BeGlobal Enterprise clients have doubled in the period, with notable sales successes, and strategically important first sales in Japan. Language Weaver technology is now integrated into the production toolsets used by Language Services. We also targeted deployment of statistical machine translation on a content applicable basis into several Language Services clients.

Major product releases in the period include SDL GlobalConnect, SDL EasyTranslator and new versions of SDL Translation Memory Server, SDL TeamWorks and SDL WorldServer. We have a clear, unified and focussed technology innovation roadmap, including some key cloud innovations.

Language Services (contributing £66.0 million or 59% of group revenue and £12.0 million or 64% of PBTA). (2010: contributing £59.0 million or 63% of group revenue and £11.8 million or 72% of PBTA).

In the Language Services segment, headline revenue grew by 12% in the first half of 2011, with constant currency revenues 14% ahead of prior year. We have had very strong new win momentum, with overall activity levels continuing to rise, particularly in North America. Revenue growth consisted of both increases in our base business and an acceleration in momentum from new wins including Hitachi Data Systems, Marks & Spencer, Panasonic System Networks, Hotel.de and Betfair. Asian demand was flat in the period, reflective more of uncertainty following the events in Japan than any structural issue. We continued to operate effectively throughout the Japan crisis. PBTA margin was 18.2%, a margin reduction of 1.7%, due to infrastructure investments and large project start up costs, although profit for the period grew in overall terms.We have made further scale up investment in sales infrastructure in Asia. We also invested in the Nordics, Singapore and Latin America to accelerate new business development and further develop our global network. We committed to office expansion in China and India to drive sales growth and create future operational leverage.

Strategy for Global Information Management

At the core of Global Information Management is delivery of compelling solutions that build brand equity and accelerate speed-to-market for our clients. We are exposed to three primary growth drivers: globalisation of business; exponential growth in digital content; and internet penetration. Global Information Management is about enabling global businesses to provide their customers with the right information, at the right time, in the right language, through the right channel. We believe that our strategic direction and product offering is both compelling and differentiated and we continue to focus on execution, providing our clients with an end- to-end solution set to manage their information delivery and content on a global basis, which is relevant to exploiting the opportunities of the digital age.

Ahead of us we see significant opportunities to further evolve our solutions, investing in technology assets, both through acquisition and targeted R&D spend, that enhance our strategic vision. In Language Technologies we see strong potential to realise the statistical machine translation investment case, lowering barriers to translation and we are firmly orientating towards the cloud with our innovation roadmap. We see large potential to drive full BPO solutions and for further territory expansion in Language Services. We believe there will be increased importance placed on dynamic, collaborative sharing of after-sales user guidance and customer support. The impact of delivering effective and targeted support through online interactive user guidance will help companies provide a richer and more enjoyable user experience, providing higher customer satisfaction and closed loop revenue generation. To address this evolution we released SDL LiveContent, designed to take user documentation and product guidance online and provide a rich user experience. We are also seeing increased interest in personalisation and targeting, as clients are engaged with the reality of potential to increase revenue capture through our eCommerce Technology.

Outlook and Current Trading

In the first half of 2011 we delivered excellent results, achieved strong constant currency growth in each of our businesses and an accelerated pace of execution of our strategy. We have also completed a small but strategically important acquisition which integrates multimedia management into our Global Information Management solution set. Our business continued to grow, with robust trading and a strong sales pipeline.

We are focussed on continuing to outperform in our chosen market segments, based on differentiation of our solutions. Our products and services are expanding and becoming more integrated through focussed innovation delivery, generating solid sales growth. In the second half of 2011 we will continue to invest revenue from sales growth into R&D and infrastructure, ensuring SDL continues to lead the field in innovation and delivery in the management of global content.

With the macro economic outlook currently mixed, we expect the Northern European economies to continue a slow recovery in the second half of 2011, as was the case in the first half of 2011, with more uncertainty prevailing in weaker Southern European countries. Continued modest growth is expected in the North American and Asian economies. Despite the variable economic outlook, based on our positioning and pipeline, we feel confident that our business will continue to deliver further profitable growth in the second half of 2011.

Mark Lancaster

Executive Chairman

SDL plc

1 August 2011

SDL plc

Interim Condensed Consolidated Income Statement

Adjusted earnings per ordinary share (basic and diluted) are shown in note 6.

SDL plc

Interim Condensed Statement of Comprehensive Income

All the total comprehensive income is attributable to equity holders of the parent company.

SDL plc

Interim Condensed Consolidated Statement of Financial Position

The Interim Financial Information presented in this Interim Report was approved by the Board of Directors on 1 August 2011.

SDL plc

Interim Condensed Consolidated Statement of Changes in Equity

These amounts are attributable to equity holders of the parent company.

SDL plc

Interim Condensed Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows

SDL plc

Interim Condensed Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows

SDL plc

Notes to the Interim Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements

1. Basis of preparation and accounting policies

Basis of preparation

The annual financial statements of the group are prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) as adopted by the EU. The interim condensed consolidated financial statements for the six months ended 30 June 2011 have been prepared on a going concern basis in accordance with IAS 34 Interim Financial Reporting.

As required by the Disclosure and Transparency Rules of the Financial Services Authority, the condensed set of financial statements has been prepared applying the accounting policies and presentation that were applied in the preparation of the company's published consolidated financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2010.

The preparation of condensed consolidated interim financial statements in conformity with IFRSs requires management to make judgements, estimates and assumptions that affect the application of accounting policies and reported amounts of assets and liabilities, income and expenses. The estimates and associated assumptions are based on historical experience and various other factors that are believed to be reasonable under the circumstances, the results for which form the basis of making the judgements about carrying values of assets and liabilities that are not readily available from other sources. Actual results may differ from these estimates.

The principal risks and uncertainties are consistent with those disclosed in preparation of the Group's annual financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2010.

2. Business Combinations

Acquisition of Calamares Holding B.V.

On 3 May 2011 the Group acquired 100% of the share capital of Calamares Holding B.V., an unlisted company based in the Netherlands. The principal activity of Calamares Holding B.V. group is the provision of media asset management solutions.

The total cost of the combination comprises €2.9 million (£2.6 million) and was funded from the Group's existing cash resources.

The provisional fair value of the identifiable assets and liabilities of Calamares Holding B.V. group as at the date of acquisition were:

All fair values included in the above analysis are provisional fair values which are based upon management's best estimate at the date of preparation of the financial statements. The fair values are only provisional due to the proximity of the acquisition to the date of the reporting period.

The maximum contingent consideration is £1.3 million. The fair value has been calculated at £1.3 million and under IFRS 3 (revised) any re-measurement will be recognised in the income statement.

From the date of acquisition Calamares Holding B.V. group has contributed £nil of revenue and a profit of £nil to the net profit after tax of the Group. If the combination had taken place at the beginning of the year, the profit for the Group would have been £11.9 million and revenue from continuing operations would have been £111.6 million. Included in the £2.0 million of goodwill recognised above are certain intangible assets that cannot be individually separated and reliably measured from the acquiree due to their nature. These items include assembled workforce.

Provisional Fair value of Xopus B.V. and Language Weaver Inc.

There have been no changes to the provisional fair value of the identifiable assets and liabilities of Xopus B.V. during the reporting period. The 12 month period for making changes to provisional fair values elapsed in June 2011. There have been no changes to the provisional fair values of the identifiable assets and liabilities of Language Weaver Inc. during the reporting period. The 12 month period for making changes to provisional fair values remains open until July 2011.

3. Segment information

The Group operates in the Global Information Management industry. For management purposes the Group is organised into business units based on their products and services and has three reportable operating segments as follows:

·; The Language Services segment is the provision of a translation service to customer's multilingual content in multiple languages.

·; The Language Technologies segment is the sale of enterprise, desktop and statistical machine translation technology developed to help automate and manage multilingual assets together with associated consultancy and other services.

·; The Content Management Technologies segment is the sale of content management technologies developed to help automate and manage content to deliver a consistent, interactive and personalised customer experience, in multiple languages, across websites, documentation, video media and channels.

Within the Content Management Technologies segment three operating segments have been aggregated to form the above reportable operating segment. The new acquisition, Calamares Holding B.V., is included within one of these segments.

Management monitors the operating results of its business units separately for the purpose of making decisions about resource allocation and performance assessment prior to charges for tax and amortisation.

Six months ended 30 June 2011 (unaudited)

*Deferred compensation relating to acquisitions

Six months ended 30 June 2010 (unaudited)

Twelve months ended 31 December 2010 (audited)

Segment assets:

(1) Segment assets do not include cash (£53,411,000), Corporation Tax (£1,463,000) and Deferred Tax (£6,755,000).

(2) Segment assets do not include cash (£55,482,000), Corporation Tax (£898,000) and Deferred Tax (£5,751,000).

(3) Segment assets do not include cash (£46,628,000), Corporation Tax (£945,000) and Deferred Tax (£6,356,000).

Revenue by geographical destination was as follows:

4. Operating profit

5. Taxation

A tax credit in respect of income tax credit on foreign currency translation differences on foreign currency loans to foreign subsidiaries was recognised in the statement of other comprehensive income of £236,000 in the six months to June 2011 (June 2010 charge of £449,000; December 2010: £90,000).

A tax credit in respect of share based compensation for current taxation of £523,000 (June 2010: £452,000; December 2010: £557,000) has been recognised in the statement of changes in equity in the year. A tax charge in respect of share based compensation for deferred taxation of £334,000 (June 2010: £245,000; December 2010: credit of £342,000) has been recognised in the statement of changes in equity in the year.

Due to the requirements of IAS 12, in conjunction with IFRS 2, the Schedule 23 tax credit for share options exercised and deferred taxation on unexpired options have partly been recorded in equity. For the 6 months ended 30 June 2011 this has the effect of increasing the effective tax rate by approximately +1.2% (at 30 June 2010:+1.6%; at 31 December 2010: +3.1%).

6. Earnings per share

7. Dividend per share

Dividends paid in the six months ending 30 June 2011 were £4,328,495 (June 2010: £Nil; December 2010: £Nil). The dividend paid amounted to 5.5 pence per ordinary share.

8. Interest-bearing loans

The Group met the cost of acquisition of Calamares Holding B.V. of £1.3 million from existing cash reserves. The undrawn committed borrowing facility is £15.0 million (December 2010: £20.0 million). 

9. Share-based payments

On 18 May 2011, 605,475 Long Term Incentive Plan (LTIP) shares were awarded and 189,574 stock options were awarded to certain key senior executives and employees of the SDL Group. The exercise price of the options of 670 pence represents the mid market price on the day before grant.

10. Derivatives and other financial instruments

At 30 June 2011, 30 June 2010 or 31 December 2010 the Group had no derivative financial instruments.  

11. General notes

The comparative figures for the financial year ended 31 December 2010 are not the company's statutory accounts for that financial year. Those accounts have been reported on by the company's auditor and delivered to the registrar of companies. The report of the auditor was (i) unqualified, (ii) did not include a reference to any matters to which the auditor drew attention by way of emphasis without qualifying their report, and (iii) did not contain a statement under section 498 (2) or (3) of the Companies Act 2006.

12. Events after the statement of financial position date

There are no known events occurring after the statement of financial position date that require disclosure.

Responsibility Statement by the Management Board

We confirm that to the best of our knowledge:

·; the condensed set of financial statements has been prepared in accordance with IAS 34 Interim Financial Reporting as adopted by the EU;

·; the interim management report includes a fair review of the information required by:

(a) DTR 4.2.7R of the Disclosure and Transparency Rules, being an indication of important events that have occurred during the first six months of the financial year and their impact on the condensed set of financial statements; and a description of the principal risks and uncertainties for the remaining six months of the year; and

(b) DTR 4.2.8R of the Disclosure and Transparency Rules, being related party transactions that have taken place in the first six months of the current financial year and that have materially affected the financial position or performance of the entity during that period; and any changes in the related party transactions described in the last annual report that could do so.

For and on behalf of the Board

John Hunter

Independent Review Report to SDL plc

Introduction

We have been engaged by the company to review the condensed set of financial statements in the half-yearly financial report for the six months ended 30 June 2011 which comprises the Interim Condensed Consolidated Income Statement, Interim Condensed Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income, Interim Condensed Consolidated Statement of Financial Position, Interim Condensed Consolidated Statement of Changes in Equity, Interim Condensed Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows, and the related explanatory notes. We have read the other information contained in the half-yearly financial report and considered whether it contains any apparent misstatements or material inconsistencies with the information in the condensed set of financial statements.

This report is made solely to the company in accordance with the terms of our engagement to assist the company in meeting the requirements of the Disclosure and Transparency Rules ("the DTR") of the UK's Financial Services Authority ("the UK FSA"). Our review has been undertaken so that we might state to the company those matters we are required to state to it in this report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the company for our review work, for this report, or for the conclusions we have reached.

Directors' responsibilities

The half-yearly financial report is the responsibility of, and has been approved by, the directors. The directors are responsible for preparing the half-yearly financial report in accordance with the DTR of the UK FSA.

The annual financial statements of the group are prepared in accordance with IFRSs as adopted by the EU. The condensed set of financial statements included in this half-yearly financial report has been prepared in accordance with IAS 34 Interim Financial Reporting as adopted by the EU.

Our responsibility

Our responsibility is to express to the company a conclusion on the condensed set of financial statements in the half-yearly financial report based on our review.

Scope of review

We conducted our review in accordance with International Standard on Review Engagements (UK and Ireland) 2410 Review of Interim Financial Information Performed by the Independent Auditor of the Entity issued by the Auditing Practices Board for use in the UK. A review of interim financial information consists of making enquiries, primarily of persons responsible for financial and accounting matters, and applying analytical and other review procedures. A review is substantially less in scope than an audit conducted in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK and Ireland) and consequently does not enable us to obtain assurance that we would become aware of all significant matters that might be identified in an audit. Accordingly, we do not express an audit opinion.

Conclusion

Based on our review, nothing has come to our attention that causes us to believe that the condensed set of financial statements in the half-yearly financial report for the six months ended 30 June 2010 is not prepared, in all material respects, in accordance with IAS 34 as adopted by the EU and the DTR of the UK FSA.

P Gresham

for and on behalf of KPMG Audit Plc

Chartered Accountants

8 Salisbury Square

London

EC4Y 8BB

1 August 2011