FY25 Interim Results

11 March 2025 - Craneware (AIM: CRW.L), a leader in healthcare financial performance solutions, is pleased to announce its unaudited results for the six months ended 31 December 2024 (H1 FY25).

Financial Highlights (US dollars)

1 Annual Recurring Revenue includes the annual value of licence and related recurring revenues including transaction revenues as at 31 December 2024 that are subject to underlying contracts and where revenue is being recognised at the reporting date

2 Adjusted EBITDA refers to earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation, share based payments and acquisition and integration related costs

3 Adjusted profit before tax refers to profit before tax, amortisation of acquired intangibles and acquisition and integration related costs

4 Operating Cash Conversion is cash generated from operations for the rolling 12 month period, adjusted to exclude cash payments for exceptional items and movements in cash held on behalf of customers, divided by adjusted EBITDA for the same 12 month period

Highlights

Keith Neilson, CEO of Craneware plc, commented,

"We are pleased to have delivered record interim financial results, reflecting the successful execution of our growth strategy. Our trusted position at the heart of the US healthcare market is translating into double digit growth rates, as we support our customers in the transformation of their operations and finance through our software and data driven insights.

"Following the US election, hospitals are now expecting a period where they can focus on their fundamentals and make investments to drive strategic growth, which we anticipate will provide a sustained demand environment for our offerings.

"The continued expansion of our Trisus platform, increasing engagement from major players within the US healthcare market and strong financial foundations mean we are well placed to execute on our ambitious growth strategy, as we support our customers in transforming the business of healthcare."

Learn more at www.thecranewaregroup.com

Business Review: A return to double digit growth

We are pleased with these record interim financial results, reflecting the successful execution of our growth strategy. Our trusted position at the heart of the US healthcare market is translating into double-digit growth rates, as we support our customers in the transformation of their operations and finance through our software and data driven insights.

Group revenue exceeded $100m in the first half for the first time, growing 10%, driven mainly by expansion with existing customers, and new customer wins. We have maintained our robust EBITDA margins and strict financial discipline, using our strong cash generation to invest into our expanding product portfolio, reduce debt and interest costs, and increase our dividend whilst retaining healthy total cash reserves.

The opportunity ahead of us is considerable and growing. For over 25 years, The Craneware Group has turned data into actionable insights, to support sustained operational and financial success for our customers. The strong Return on Investment that our solutions deliver has facilitated steady customer growth, and we are proud to count approximately 40% of all US hospitals and associated pharmacies as customers. However, our ambition is to be ubiquitous in all US hospitals, and we will do this through sustained innovation, combining our healthcare expertise, wealth of independent healthcare data and engineering excellence to develop solutions that enhance our customers' business performance.

The first half of the year has seen a considerable step forward in this regard. Our teams are working alongside Microsoft in the area of AI innovation, and joint marketing initiatives around these enhanced offerings have now commenced. Meanwhile we have strengthened our relationship with Oracle, completing the integration of our Oracle and Azure-based technology stacks, providing the ability for greater data flow and analysis, which will in turn support ongoing product innovation.

The strength of our offerings, our deep healthcare specialism and data, breadth of customer base and growing partnerships, provide us with confidence in the continued successful execution of our growth strategy.

A positive sales performance

Following the election, US hospitals are now expecting a period where they can focus on fundamentals and make investments to drive strategic growth, providing a sustained demand environment for our offerings.

The period has seen a particularly strong cross-sale performance, with Business of Pharmacy leading the way and generating significant expansion sales to our existing customers. With record expansion sales of 98% of our total 'new' sales (H1 FY24: 78%), we continue to benefit from the investments made into our cloud platform and the increased upsell ability it provides.

Customer wins and expansions secured in H1 include:

Customer retention remained high at over 90% across all metrics (hospital numbers, customer numbers and number of products), which we continue to believe represents market leading levels which drove an NRR of greater than 100%.

This positive sales performance and ongoing high customer retention provides a strong basis to build momentum as we enter the second half of the year.

A considerable opportunity ahead and positive market backdrop

With over $177m in ARR, derived from approximately 2,000 hospitals and associated pharmacies, we have a strong platform for future growth. We will continue to expand the offerings on our Trisus platform, both through in-house innovation and partnership opportunities, aiming to grow our addressable market and increase share of customer wallet.

We see three categories of potential growth catalysts:

Ongoing platform and product enhancements support expansion opportunity

The continual improvement of our existing offerings is an ongoing process. Combinations of new technology and their novel applications give speed, productivity and efficiency gains that benefit the ease of use of our offerings by our customers.

We were pleased to once again rank number one in the highly renowned "Best in KLAS" awards in February for our flagship Trisus Chargemaster solution, demonstrating our continued leadership within revenue cycle management.

As part of our Data Foundations programme of work, we are utilising the advances in AI and ML data processing to increase the interoperability and connectivity of our applications, while making the platform's back-end processes more efficient and effective. This work has now enabled the full integration of our Revenue Integrity and 340B related software technology stacks, via the Oracle Database@Azure, which centralises data in Trisus whilst leveraging the processing power of Oracle, reducing latency and improving data integration across products and services, thereby making our offerings even more attractive to customers as the speed and depth of insights available is increased.

The depth of our product offering continues to expand through mining of the proprietary and regulatory data that we collect, identifying new ways that data can illuminate and support decision making within the hospital provider environment. We now have data sets covering more than 200 million patient encounters, providing incredibly valuable insights for our customers.

Microsoft Alliance provides product innovation opportunities and expanded market reach

We are seeing increased engagement from other industry participants, such as Microsoft and Oracle, as part of their strategic focus on the healthcare market. The first half of the year has seen exciting innovation in conjunction with both parties across our Trisus platform and its applications, and we look forward to benefitting from these collaborations in future periods in the form of increased marketing activities, accelerated product development and streamlined new customer acquisitions.

As part of the alliance with Microsoft announced in July 2024, the first three Trisus solutions are now live on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. We were delighted to execute the first major customer contract via the Marketplace in H1, with additional opportunities in progress and the first joint go-to-market initiatives now commencing.

Launch of Trisus® Assist

The Alliance will also see the delivery of differentiated offerings and increased value to customers through the application of industry leading data analytics, AI, and modern platform technology within Trisus to provide improved predictive analysis and the ability to uncover greater actionable insights for our customers. We attended the leading industry event, HIMSS, earlier this month, in conjunction with Microsoft, where we had the opportunity to jointly showcase the innovation taking place across our offerings, including the launch of Trisus® Assist, a groundbreaking AI-powered personal assistant, initially available within Trisus® Chargemaster - designed to revolutionise how healthcare finance, administration and operational teams research and navigate complex healthcare operational issues and generate greater efficiencies.

Our AI-driven solution eliminates inefficiency by:

Platform continues to deliver

Our growing Partner and Platform programme further enables us to leverage the strength of our data and platform to generate additional, highly scalable, revenue streams, aiming to bring additional benefits to our customers. These programmes will include our ability to leverage third parties, including through hosting third party applications on the Trisus platform.

Initially, we consider these to be non-recurring revenue, but over time we expect much of this revenue to become recurring. In the period, we have been able to transition the early adopters into a recurring revenue model, adding to our ARR, and there is a building pipeline of additional programme opportunities, which are being rigorously assessed prior to launch.

M&A provides potential for strategy acceleration

While organic growth across our portfolio remains the priority, we continue to evaluate the market for suitable M&A opportunities and strategically aligned companies that will accelerate our growth strategy. We maintain the same four key acquisition criteria of which target companies must fit into at least one, being: the addition of relevant data sets; the extension of the customer base; the expansion of expertise; and the addition of applications suitable for the US hospital market. We view our platform partnering programme as a potential source of future M&A activity, provided this would deliver mutual benefits to all parties.

Strengthening of the Board of Directors

We were pleased to appoint Tamra Minnier in November 2024 and Susan Nelson in January 2025 as Non-Executive Directors. Both bring a wealth of experience in the US healthcare market, holding leadership roles within major US integrated healthcare systems, and will provide invaluable guidance, alongside existing Board Directors, on the continued evolution of our product offerings.

Financial Review

In our January trading statement, we confirmed the Group's return to double digit growth for the six months ended 31 December 2024, for both revenue and EBITDA. This pleasing result coincided with a milestone for the Group, reporting $100m of Revenue in an individual six-month period for the first time. With revenue growing to $100.0m (H1 FY24: $91.2m) and a corresponding 10% increase in Adjusted EBITDA to $30.3m (H1 FY24: $27.5m), the Group is now focused on sustaining these growth rates for the full year and using them as a "springboard" to further success. These results are a combination of the Group's strategic investments in the Trisus platform, and the considerable efforts of our employees, combined with the improving US Healthcare market landscape, as US hospitals plan for their future and look for the right strategic partners to help them achieve their aims.

We have explained in our prior year's report that a big focus of our capital allocation decisions would be de-leveraging the balance sheet because of the macro interest rate environment and the impact this was having on our results, primarily to Adjusted EPS. Whilst retaining access to the overall Revolving Credit Facility (RCF) of up to $100m, we have actively reduced our RCF draw to $20m. This, combined with ongoing payments of $2m per quarter against our term loan, has resulted in a reduction in overall bank debt to $31.6m (H1 FY24: $59.2m). Equally significantly, the reduced net interest charge has contributed to an Adjusted EPS increase of 18%, over the corresponding period in the prior year, to 50.6 cents per share (H1 FY24: 42.8 cents per share), and an increase on an unadjusted basis of 78% from 11.6 cents per share to 20.7 cents per share.

Whilst it is clear that macroeconomic challenges remain, it is pleasing to report that the strength of the Group's balance sheet, levels of cash conversion combined with our end market continuing to improve, means we are well positioned and financially able to navigate these.

Investment in R&D

We continue to believe the digitalisation of healthcare and the improvement of processes using data insights will provide the foundation for value-based care and enable the transformation of the business of healthcare. Our enlarged portfolio of products means we can do even more to support our customers in their strategic needs. This, combined with our independent position in the market, means we are uniquely placed to support all US healthcare providers. The real financial returns our solutions deliver and the certainty for our customers that the Group acts solely for their benefit allow us to be a true strategic partner to US Hospitals. It is therefore essential we continue to build on this position and make the right investments in our future as we develop further ways of supporting our customers.

We have continued to invest in R&D, increasing spend in the period by 5% to $26.3m (H1 FY24: $25.0m). The amount of this investment capitalised in the period, being $7.1m (H1 FY24: $7.9m), has reduced in percentage terms to approximately 27% of the total investment, this is reflective of the strong controls over the amounts we invest and capitalise in relation R&D spend. The mix of "stages" of R&D projects has seen a number of prior year projects being completed with a corresponding end of capitalisation for their costs. This, combined with new Proof of Concepts (including those with Microsoft under our strategic alliance) being at a "pre-capitalisation" stage, has lowered the levels of capitalised R&D expenditure in the period. The balance of the R&D spend of $19.2m (H1 FY24: $17.1m) has been expensed as incurred. We continue to ensure that any costs that have been capitalised will bring future economic benefit to the Group, by monitoring the value of contracts sold for these new products once launched, comparing these against the costs that have been invested.

Cash Reserves

As a group, we continue to deliver excellent operating cash conversion. This increased our cash reserves, which at the period end were $72.2m (H1 FY24: $63.9m) and reduced our bank debt to $31.6m (H1 FY24: $59.2m). We maintain an undrawn RCF of $80m.

From these cash reserves, we have returned $7.1m to our shareholders through dividends as well as the $26.3m investment we have made in R&D in the period. Our business model is highly cash generative, and we continue to deliver significant levels of operating cash conversion, in the last 12 months we achieved over 100% cash conversion.

Underlying Business Model and Professional Services

The software contracts we sign with our hospital customers provide a licence for the customer to access specified products throughout their licence period. At the end of an existing licence period, or at a mutually agreed earlier date, we look to renew these contracts with our customers.

In addition to the core licences, our 340B hospital customers can add further licences to provide 340B coverage to eligible patients who, rather than return to the hospital for their prescriptions, have these filled at local contract pharmacies or mail order specialised pharmacies. These further licences often include transactional based licence fees and other services. These transactional services, whilst highly dependable, will see some variation month to month dependent on volume of transactions.

Under the Group's business model, we recognise software licence revenue and any minimum payments due from our 'other long term' contracts evenly over the life of the underlying contract term. Transactional services are recognised as we provide the service, and we are contractually able to invoice the customer.

In addition to the licence revenues recognised in any year, we derive revenue from providing services to our customers. Where these services are provided over an extended contract period, usually alongside the multi-year software licence as part of one our Trisus Optimization Suites, or where they relate to a complex implementation integral to the use of the software, the revenue is recognised evenly over the life of the underlying contract or project term.

The combination of these two software revenue models plus our recurring professional services represent the recurring platform revenues of the business, which for the current period have increased to $87.9m (H1 FY24: $81.5m).

Shorter professional or consulting services engagements are also provided, usually taking less than one year to complete. These revenues are usually recognised as we deliver the service to the customer, on a percentage of completion basis.

We continue to look for new and innovative ways to leverage the Trisus platform and the significant data assets within it. Our Platform partnership programme aims to deliver meaningful benefit to our customers and derive new revenue opportunities and additional business models for the Group. These revenues are recognised at the point we are able to invoice our customers. As initially, it is often too early to establish a pattern of what would become recurring, they are shown separately as "Platform Revenues - non-recurring". Over time we expect much of this revenue to become recurring and as such will be reported within Software licence or Transactional revenue, as appropriate.

Annual Recurring Revenue

By renewing our underlying contracts, and ensuring we continue to deliver the transactional services to our customers we sustain a highly visible recurring revenue base, which means sales bookings of new products to existing customers or sales bookings to new hospital customers add to this recurring revenue.

Our ARR metric identifies and demonstrates the Group's continued high levels of contracted revenue visibility. It is defined as the annual value of licence and recurring revenues including transaction revenues as at 31 December 2024 that are subject to underlying contracts and where revenue is being recognised at the reporting date. We also report our Net Recurring Revenue metric which identifies the contribution from our existing customer base, and in the period was over 100%. The Group's ARR at 31 December 2024 was $177.3m (H1 FY24: $171.4m). We expect further growth in this metric, including as additional revenues generated from our partnership contracts are identified as recurring.

Functional Currency

We continue to report the results (and hold the cash reserves) of the Group in US Dollars, whilst having approximately 20% percent of our costs, mainly in respect of our UK employees and UK purchases, denominated in Sterling. The average exchange rate for the Company during the reporting period was $1.29/£1 which compares to $1.25/£1 in the corresponding period last year. The exchange rate at the Balance Sheet date was $1.25/£1 (H1 FY24: $1.27/£1).

Dividend

The Board has declared an interim dividend of 13.5p (16.87 cents) per ordinary share, payable on 17 April 2025 to those shareholders on the register as at 21 March 2025 (FY24 Interim dividend 13.0p). The ex-dividend date is 20 March 2025.

The interim dividend of 13.5p per share is capable of being paid in US dollars subject to a shareholder having registered to receive their dividend in US dollars under the Company's Dividend Currency Election, or who has registered to do so by the close of business on 21 March 2025. The exact amount to be paid will be calculated by reference to the exchange rate to be announced on 21 March 2025. The interim dividend referred to above in US dollars of 16.87 cents is given as an example only using the Balance Sheet date exchange rate of $1.25/£1 and may differ from that finally announced.

Continued positive trading and outlook

Positive trading has continued into the second half of the year and the Board remains confident in achieving results for the year to 30 June 2025 in line with current market expectations.

Longer-term, the Board continues to see considerable opportunity, reflecting Craneware's strong market positioning, expanding Trisus platform, and the significant size of the overall market, providing the potential for further growth acceleration, in line with the Group's ambitions.

The strength of the Group's balance sheet, high levels of recurring revenue and strong cash generation provide Craneware with the solid financial foundations required to execute on this opportunity, as we support our customers in transforming the business of healthcare.

1 See note 15 for explanation of Alternative Performance Measures. 2 Exceptional items relate to integration costs associated with the purchase of Sentry Data Systems, Inc

Earnings per share for the period attributable to equity holders

Notes to the Financial Statements

Revenue from contracts with customers

The chief operating decision maker has been identified as the Board of Directors. The Group revenue is derived almost entirely from the sale of software licences, professional services (including installation) and transactional fees to hospitals and affiliated pharmacies within the United States of America. Consequently, the Board has determined that the Group supplies only one geographical market place and as such revenue is presented in line with management information without the need for additional segmental analysis. All of the Group's assets are located in the United States of America with the exception of the Parent Company's, the net assets of which are located in the United Kingdom.

Software licensing and professional services are recognised over time. Transactional fees and other revenue are recognised at a point in time.

Earnings per Share

The calculation of basic and diluted earnings per share is based on the following data:

Weighted average number of shares

The Group has one category of dilutive potential Ordinary shares, being those granted to Directors and employees under the share schemes.

Shares held by the Employee Benefit Trust and Treasury Shares held directly by the Company are excluded from the weighted average number of Ordinary shares for the purposes of basic earnings per share.

Profit for period

Basic earnings per share are calculated by dividing the profit attributable to equity holders of the Company by the weighted average number of shares in issue during the period.

For diluted earnings per share, the weighted average number of Ordinary shares calculated above is adjusted to assume conversion of all dilutive potential Ordinary shares.

Earnings per share

-----There is no material difference between the fair value of trade and other receivables and the book value stated above. All amounts included within trade and receivables are classified as financial assets at amortised cost.

Trade and other payables

------No derivatives have been entered into in the current reporting period. No other assets or liabilities have been measured at fair value. Trade and other payables are classified as financial liabilities at amortised cost.

Borrowings

The debt facility comprises a term loan of $12m (H1 2024: $20m) which is repayable in quarterly instalments over 5 years up to 30 June 2026, and a revolving loan facility of $100m of which $20m (H1 2024: $40m) is drawn down and which expires on 7 June 2026. During the 6 month period, $4m was repaid on the term loan.

Interest is charged on the facility on a daily basis at margin and compounded reference rate. The margin is related to the leverage of the Group as defined in the loan agreement. As the leverage of the Group strengthens, the applicable margin reduces.

The facility is secured by a Scots law floating charge granted by the Company, an English law debenture granted by the Company and a New York law security agreement to which the Company and certain of its subsidiaries are parties. The securities granted by the Company and the relevant subsidiaries provide security over all assets of the Company and specified assets of the Group.

Arrangement fees paid in advance of the setting up of the facility are being recognised over the life of the facility in operating costs. The remaining balance of unamortised fees and interest at 31 December 2024 is $0.4m (31 December 2023: $0.8m).

Loan covenants

Under the facilities the Group is required to meet quarterly covenants tests in respect of:

• Adjusted leverage which is the ratio of total net debt on the last day of the relevant period to adjusted EBITDA;
• Cash flow cover which is the ratio of cashflow to net finance charges in respect of the relevant period.

The Group complied with these ratios throughout the reporting period.

Financing arrangements

The Group's undrawn borrowing facilities were as follows:

Cash generated from operations

Reconciliation of profit before taxation to net cash generated from operations:

Cash and cash equivalents

For the purpose of the statement of cash flows, cash and cash equivalents comprise cash held by the Group and short-term bank deposits.

Basis of Preparation

The interim financial statements are unaudited and do not constitute statutory accounts as defined in S435 of the Companies Act 2006. These statements have been prepared applying accounting policies that were applied in the preparation of the Group's consolidated accounts for the year ended 30 June 2024 and the changes outlined below in Note 13. Those accounts, with an unqualified audit report, have been delivered to the Registrar of Companies.

The interim financial statements have been prepared on a going concern basis. The Group's activities and an overview of the development of its products, services and the environment in which it operates together with an update on the Group's financial performance and position are set out in the Financial Review. The Group is profitable and there is a reasonable expectation that this will continue to be the case. Our business model is delivering high levels of recurring revenue, supported by long term underlying contracts. In addition, the Group has cash and cash equivalents of $72.2m as well as a committed but undrawn facility of $80m available.

The Viability Statement and the Board's Going Concern assessment contained the Annual Report for the year ended 30 June 2024 are still considered to be appropriate by the Board. The SaaS business model with its underlying long-term contracts, as described earlier in the Financial Review, high levels of cash generation and long-term focus on customer success provides a foundation of revenue for future periods. This foundation of contracted revenue forms the basis of the scenarios considered by the Directors in making this assessment.

The Directors, having made suitable enquiries and analysis of the interim financial statements, including the consideration of: net cash; continued cash generation; compliance with loan facility covenants; and SaaS business model; have determined that the Group has adequate resources to continue in business for the foreseeable future and that it is therefore appropriate to adopt the going concern basis in preparing the interim financial statements.

Segmental Information

The Directors consider that the Group operates in predominantly one business segment, being the creation of software sold entirely to the US Healthcare Industry, and that there are therefore no additional segmental disclosures to be made in these financial statements.

Risks and uncertainties

The principal risks and uncertainties, as set out on pages 21 to 28 of the Annual Report for the year ended 30 June 2024, remain unchanged. The unchanged risks are:

The Directors regularly review these risks and uncertainties and appropriate actions are taken to manage them. Included within the Strategic Report section is more detail on the outlook for the Group for the remaining six months of the year.

• Changes to Significant Accounting Policies, Judgements and Estimates

The accounting policies, significant judgements and key sources of estimation applied in these interim financial statements are the same as those applied in the Group's consolidated financial statements as at and for the year ended 30 June 2024.

Availability of Half Yearly Financial Report

Copies of this Half Yearly Financial Report are available for download from the Company's website, www.thecranewaregroup.com. A printed copy can be obtained on request from the registered office of the Company.

Alternative performance measures

The Group's performance is assessed using a number of financial measures which are not defined under IFRS and are therefore non-GAAP (alternative) performance measures.

The Directors believe these measures enable the reader to focus on what the Group regard as a more reliable indicator of the underlying performance of the Group since they exclude items which are not reflective of the normal course of business, accounting estimates and non-cash items. The adjustments made are consistent and comparable with other similar companies.

Adjusted EBITDA

Adjusted EBITDA refers to earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation, exceptional items and share based payments.

Adjusted earnings per share (EPS)

Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) calculations allow for the tax adjusted acquisition costs and share related transactions together with amortisation on acquired intangibles via business combinations. See Note 2 for the calculation.

Adjusted PBT

Adjusted PBT refers to profit before tax adjusted for exceptional items and amortisation of acquired intangibles.

Net cash / (borrowings)

Net borrowings refers to net balance of short term borrowings, long term borrowings and cash and cash equivalents.

Lease liabilities are excluded from borrowings for the purpose of net borrowings.

Total Sales

Total Sales refer to the total value of contracts signed in the year, consisting of New Sales and Renewals.

New Sales

New Sales refers to the total value of contracts with new customers or new products to existing customers at some time in their underlying contract.

Annual Recurring Revenue

Annual Recurring Revenue includes the annual value of licence and transaction revenues as at 31 December 2024 that are subject to underlying contracts and where revenue is being recognised at the reporting date.

Net Revenue Retention

Net Revenue Retention is the percentage of revenue retained from existing customers over the measurement period, taking into account both churn and expansion sales.

Revenue Growth

Revenue Growth is the increase in Revenue in the current period compared to the previous period expressed as a percentage of the previous period Revenue.

Directors, Secretary, Advisors and Subsidiaries

D Kemp (senior independent director) A Erskine (non-executive) A McCune (non-executive) T Minnier (non-executive) (appointed 13 November 2024)

S Nelson (non-executive) (appointed 16 January 2025)

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