Eight Capital Partners PLC (AQSE:ECP) reported a swing to profit for the first half of the year and progress with its plans to develop a SME digital lending platform and potentially also expand into wealth and asset management.
Two weeks after posting its 2022 full-year numbers, the fintech group reported a net profit of £1.2 million for the first half of 2023, flipped from a £0.5 million loss a year earlier.
This was from revenues, predominantly from project-related fees, were £0.6 million, up from £0.05 million, which the board pronounced “satisfactory”.
While administration costs tripled to £1.3 million, this was largely attributed to a £0.7 million unrealised foreign exchange loss, which was offset by a £1.7 million fair value gain on the company's listed investments.
At the end of June cash in the bank stood at £40,000 with investments at £30.5 million, but as at the date of this report, the group said it had cash or equivalents of roughly £545,000, which include cash of £160,000 and listed shares of £345,000, as well as receivables contractually agreed over the next 12 months of around £1 million.
With more than £30 million pounds due to be repaid to the company at the end of next June when the 1AF2 bond matures, of which £29.6 million was covered by a security package at year end, the directors said the group’s funding requirements are not expected to exceed £1 million in the next 12 months, with any material capex to be funded by fresh capital and good support expected from its main shareholder, Trumar Capital.
With ECP having stated its intention is to create a pan-European SME digital lending platform that would deliver "faster, quicker and cheaper capital" to SME clients, chairman Dominic White said the team has been “working intensely towards delivering this strategy and has a number of opportunities that have been developed, with strong potential for a near-term announcement”.
On top of that, the company is “seeing an increasing number of wealth and asset management consolidation opportunities, that, subject to pricing and building a strong digitisation team pre-acquisition, it intends to progress in 2024”.