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Vizrt Ltd. (OSL:VIZ) Vizrt Reports H1 and Q2 2008 Results Company Reiterates Guidance
Bergen, Norway, August 14, 2008, Vizrt Ltd. (Frankfurt Prime Standard, Oslo Main List: VIZ) today announces its results for the first half & second quarter of 2008. Revenues for the first six months of 2008 increased by 15% to USD 47.4 Million, with all major regions contributing to the growth.
Due to lack of certain hardware components, the Company was not able to complete all projects earmarked for delivery in Q2 and thus revenue slipped below USD 25M. These deals are part of the record backlog of more than USD 30 million and therefore the Company still feels confident with the full year guidance provided at the beginning of the year.
Financial highlights for the six months ended June 30, 2008
Total Revenue: USD 47.4M, an increase of 15% compared to USD 41.2M in H1 2007. EBIT: USD 8.4M, up 12% from USD 7.4M in H1 2007.
EBITDA: (excluding taxes, interest, depreciation, amortization of intangible assets and deferred stock-based compensation) was USD 11.1M, an increase from USD 10.0M in H1 2007.
Net Profit: USD 7.8M, up 11% from USD 7.0M in H1 2007.
Earnings per diluted share: USD 0.12 compared to USD 0.11 in H1 2007.
Cash status: USD 52.9M (including cash and short term deposits) up USD 4.9M from USD 48.0M as of December 31, 2007.
Business Highlights
The acquisition of Escenic has now been completed. Terms and conditions regarding the acquisition are as announced previously. Starting August 14, 2008 Escenic's financial results will be included in the financial reports of Vizrt Ltd.
2008 Outlook
Bjarne Berg, CEO of Vizrt, stated, "Some of the orders we expected to complete this quarter have slipped into Q3 due to lack of supply of essential hardware components. However, we have built up a record backlog of over USD 30 Million for MAM and Graphics combined, and we are confident we should be able to achieve what we provided as our outlook at the beginning of the year."
"Looking at MAM, demand is exceeding our current capacity to supply. We are taking steps to increase staff in order to benefit from the strong demand. MAM requests from customers are still challenging and labor-intensive, but we are making good progress in improving our internal operational work flow and thereby increasing efficiency. Older, complex and resource intensive projects are about to be completed, which leaves room for more lucrative deals to be finalized and pursued."
"On the graphics side there are no visible signs of a slowdown, even if so far we have not reached the projected 20% growth quarter-on-quarter. Our guidance was based on a full business year and the current order backlog justifies that we still feel confident in reaching our outlook.
"The Escenic deal has now been completed and we will immediately start exploring the full potential of the combined businesses, beginning at IBC (mid-September), where we will present the first generation of integrated products. The fact that some media houses see a decrease in advertising revenues, will most likely trigger the making of smarter investments in workflow solutions that avoid a duplication of efforts, which will be crucial to control costs. Our combined and integrated products, delivering tools for graphics (traditional Vizrt), content management (Ardendo) and publishing (Escenic) are therefore a perfect match."
FOR FULL REPORT AND PRESENTATION PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINKS AT THE END OF THIS MESSAGE.
A conference call will be held at 11:00 (CEST) today to offer analysts, investors and media the opportunity to directly discuss the results and recent developments with Bjarne Berg, CEO, and Ofra Brown, CFO of the company. Please use one of the following dial-in-numbers: +44 20 7806 1969 (UK), +47 2316 2819 (Norway), +49 69 71044 5513 (Germany). Participant Pass Code: 733257.
Media and investors contacts:
Bjarne Berg President & CEO Vizrt Ltd. +47 9055 7711 bberg@vizrt.com
Ofra Brown CFO Vizrt Ltd. +47 5351 8040 ofra@vizrt.com
Frank Schwarz SCHWARZ Financial Communication +49 611 1745 398 11 Schwarz@schwarzfinancial.com
