Well-oiled Autonomy purrs to record revenues, profits; sales pipeline strong
Autonomy Corporation plc’s revenue for the year to end December grew 37% to $343m; while adjusted operating profit was up 60% to $109m.
It had record pre-tax profit of $113.2m, up 64% from 2006, it said in a statement to the stock exchange.
CEO Mike Lynch (pictured) said: "2007 was another amazing year for Autonomy by every measure, driven by our strong organic growth and the ZANTAZ acquisition. Top line revenues, operating profits, bottom line profit before tax and EPS are all up significantly, ahead of analyst consensus expectations, with strong organic growth and the ZANTAZ acquisition performing well.”
And not just for the Cambridge-based company. On Friday, Dr Lynch was nominated Innovator of the Year in the run up to the 2008European Business Leaders Awards at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos.
“Throughout 2007 we consolidated our industry leadership position, and finished 2007 as the undisputed leader in pan-enterprise search and meaning based computing,” he said.
"2007 was a transformational year for our markets driven by the fundamental change of the IT world to the usage of unstructured information and the secondary drivers of regulatory changes such as the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure resulting in a convergence of legal and operational information systems, this factor is key to most commercial sales.
“The elevation of unstructured information issues to prime-time status also drives growth in our OEM business, where we remain the de facto standard."
Even the sub-prime crisis helps
Dr. Lynch said Autonomy was seeing continuing strength as the momentum of the revolution towards unstructured information gathers pace.
“Even the effect of the sub-prime crisis appears now to be a positive for our business, as our recent $70m contract with a global bank demonstrated, as organizations accelerate their plans in order to be prepared for the consequences engendered by recent events,” he said.
Autonomy’s regulatory, compliance and government-driven prospects, which account for a significant majority of revenues, were robust as were other areas of the business, he said.
“While the current economic conditions bring a degree of uncertainty to any business, we have seen no change in trading conditions although we will continue to monitor the situation closely as the year unfolds. Our strong fundamental market dynamics together with a record sales pipeline suggest that we have reasons to be confident in the current outlook for the business."
Dr Lynch founded Autonomy in 1996 based on his research at the University of Cambridge and rapidly established the company's reputation as a world-leading provider of infrastructure software for unstructured information and meaning-based technologies.
Over the years he expanded the Group both organically and through targeted acquisitions. In December 2005 it acired saw Autonomy's acquisition former competitor Verity for $500m ,which consolidated its position as number one in the market. Last year Autonomy acquired ZANTAZ, a global leader in content archiving and electronic discovery solutions, for $375m, anticipating a key area of growth. Dr Lynch said it was now a fully integrated operation.
Autonomy, listed on the London Stock Exchange, now has a market cap of £1.8 billion, after its share rose marginally on the result in early trading this morning. It is the second largest pure software company in Europe, and the largest listed tech company headquartered in Silicon Fen. It was named the Best Performing Software Company in Europe in 2007.
29th January 2008
