Utilitywise Regulatory News (UTW)

29 April 2014

Utilitywise Plc

("Utilitywise" or "The Company")

Acquisition of ICON

Utilitywise PLC (AIM:UTW), a leading independent utility cost management consultancy, is pleased to announce the acquisition of the entire issued share capital of ICON Communication Centres ("ICON"), a leading international provider of contact centre services based in the Czech Republic.

ICON is an established provider of multilingual contact centre services for the international market. Founded in 2003, the company currently operates one call centre in the Czech Republic with 150 employees and the capacity to expand to 300 seats. For the year to 31 December 2013, ICON reported revenue of £3.0m and EBITDA of £0.13m.

The initial consideration payable is €1.08 million in cash with a commitment to issue 30,701 new ordinary shares in Utilitywise at an issue price of 321.7p per new ordinary share, being the average mid market price of a Utilitywise share in the 30 trading days to 25 April 2014 (the "Initial Consideration Shares"). Up to a further €1.2 million will become payable by 30 April 2015 in cash and shares (the "Deferred Consideration Shares") subject to meeting certain EBITDA performance targets in the 12 month period ending 31 December 2014. Both the Initial Consideration Shares and the Deferred Consideration Shares will be issued following publication of Icon's audited financial statements for the 12 month period ending 31 December 2014.

Geoff Thompson, Chief Executive of Utilitywise, commented: "Our initial testing of the European market is showing early positive results and the addition of ICON to the Group provides us with a European footprint from which to expand our services in Europe to the full intermediary procurement model that we employ in the UK. While the opportunity in the UK remains large and our primary focus, we are encouraged with the positive reception to our offering in the European energy markets and look forward to pursuing this opportunity."

Utilitywise is pleased to announce an immediate opportunity for its new acquisition which underlines the synergies that exist between its UK operations and the new Prague business.

Utilitywise has enjoyed a long standing relationship with Oil & Gas major TOTAL through its Total Gas & Power (TGP) energy supply activities. Since 2008 the Company has marketed TGP products and services as part of its product catalogue of energy related services to B2B clients in a number of European markets. Utilitywise has also, since 2012, provided a telesales service to TGP in France.

TGP and Utilitywise have now agreed, subject to contract, to further expand their co-operation. Two contracts are envisaged for delivery by the new Prague operation, each with an initial term running to end of 2016. 

Under the first, Utilitywise will implement the final expansion phase of the existing TGP telesales service contract to France from its Prague operation. This is expected to add an additional 20 seat telesales capacity resulting in a total commitment approaching 65 seat capacity.

The second contract relates to co-operation in the German B2B market. Utilitywise will offer its clients, as part of its energy service packages in Germany, exclusive TGP energy products. The two organisations are expecting the combination of products and services to result in very attractive customer propositions that will allow greater market penetration for both businesses. A team of up to 100 Utilitywise resources will be engaged in this joint marketing project over a 2.5 year contract.

On target revenues from these contracts will assure the medium term growth for the new Prague operation and will help the Utilitywise Group to fully exploit the additional capacity created by the Prague acquisition. 

TGP Senior Vice President Jon Shead said: "These proposed new co-operations between TGP and Utilitywise re-affirms our confidence in the ability of Utilitywise. We believe in their ability to deliver the types of telephone based services that we need to support our continued growth and delivery of strong customer services. We have worked with Utilitywise over a number of years and we appreciate the strength of their business model and the performance focus of their management."

For further information:

About Utilitywise

Utilitywise is a leading independent utility cost management consultancy based in South Shields, Tyne and Wear. The Company has established trading relationships with a number of major UK energy suppliers and provides services to its customers designed to assist them in achieving better value out of their energy contracts, reduced energy consumption and lower carbon footprint.

Businesses large and small rely on Utilitywise for their energy management needs. Clients range in size from high street shops to multinationals with thousands of sites and cover the whole of the UK. In total, Utilitywise has over 17,000 customers and manages an overall energy consumption of approaching 20 terra watt hours per annum.

Utilitywise is a UK company quoted on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange. For more information, please visit www.utilitywise.com.

About TGP Marketing

TGP Marketing is the Total division involved in the marketing of gas, power, coal and related services to B2B clients through its wholly owned subsidiaries in UK, France, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium. It has a turnover approaching 4Bn Euros and 700 staff.