NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES, AUSTRALIA, CANADA, JAPAN, NEW ZEALAND OR THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION WHERE SUCH RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION WOULD BE UNLAWFUL.
DEFINED TERMS ARE AS STATED IN THE COMPANY'S ADMISSION DOCUMENT DATED 2 APRIL 2023 (THE "ADMISSION DOCUMENT").
6 April 2023
Fadel Partners, Inc.
('FADEL', the 'Company' and, together with its subsidiaries, the 'Group')
Admission to AIM and First Day of Dealings
Fadel Partners, Inc. (AIM: FADL), a leading brand compliance and rights and royalty management software provider, is pleased to announce the admission of its entire issued share capital to trading on AIM, a market operated by the London Stock Exchange plc ("Admission").
Admission will take place, and dealings in the Company's depositary interests over common shares of $0.001 ("Common Shares") will commence, at 8.00 a.m. today under the ticker 'FADL'.
Founded in 2003 by Tarek Fadel (Chief Executive Officer) and headquartered in New York (United States), FADEL has since grown to a team of 116 full time employees, plus an additional pool of c.50-60 contractors. FADEL is a leading developer of cloud-based brand compliance and rights and royalty management software, working with some of the world's leading licensors and licensee across media, entertainment, publishing, consumer brands and hi-tech/gaming companies.
FADEL has two solutions, being IPM Suite (rights and royalty management for publishers and licensing) and Brand Vision (an integrated platform for brand compliance & monitoring that includes content services, digital rights management, AI-powered content tracking, a brand monitor, and 100 million ready-to-license images). The use of FADEL's products spans across marketers and advertisers to accelerate campaign creation, eliminate content misuse and maximise asset reuse; finance teams to generate and precisely manage royalty calculations, statements and audit reports; and licensing professionals to identify licensing violations, optimise revenue and avoid over/under royalty payments.
Key Highlights:
· | Based on the Placing Price of 144p, the market capitalisation of the Company will be approximately £28.8 million at Admission
|
· | In connection with Admission, gross proceeds of £8.0 million were raised by way of the Placing and the Fadel Loan |
· | finnCap Ltd is Nominated Adviser and Broker in relation to the Placing and Admission
|
· | Following Admission, the Company will have 19,968,003 Common Shares in issue
|
· | The Company's ISIN is USU3033R1024 and its SEDOL is BN6NDF9 |
Use of Proceeds:
The Directors believe that the Group's solutions are scalable and help address some of the challenges companies face as a result of digital transformation, growing amounts of content and IP and complex licensing arrangements. Therefore, the Directors believe that the Group is well positioned to capitalize on fundamental market growth and pursue its growth strategy of selling into new and existing geographies, growing existing industries, entering new industries and evolving its products to meet customer needs.
The gross proceeds of the Placing of the New Shares and Fadel Loan will be used by the Company to:
· | Invest in sales to proactively sell its solutions into a growing market (US/European sales expansion through direct sales, partnerships and distribution arrangements);
|
· | Investment into marketing (leads, ads and webinars);
|
· | Conduct R&D to continue to innovate and develop its products to enhance its existing offering and address its customer and potential customer needs;
|
· | Reinforce growth (support and services team to complement the sales team effort); and
|
· | Provide general working capital, including the advisory costs and other expenses of the Placing and Admission. |
Tarek Fadel, Chief Executive Officer, commented:
"We are delighted to announce our admission to trading on AIM.
"FADEL has already established itself as a leader in its field, delivering solutions to companies across numerous sectors and geographies. The successful completion of our IPO represents the beginning of a new chapter and this investment will allow us to expedite our growth strategy to scale alongside the rapidly expanding digital content and IP market and to capitalise on the significant opportunity available to us.
"We believe that AIM is a natural fit for FADEL as it has a proven track record for helping technology companies achieve their growth ambitions.
"I am delighted to welcome our new shareholders and would like to thank them for their support. We look forward to working with them in the years ahead as we build on our strong foundations and push forward with our growth plans.
"We expect to announce our results for the 12 months ended 31 December 2022 in early June 2023 and look forward to seeing our investors at that time."
Key Investment Case Highlights
· | Innovative, scalable technology offering with a strong track record - FADEL's award-winning enterprise-ready cloud software provides solutions for content and IP creators (licensors) and content and IP users (licensees). Its system is built on a highly scalable architecture. Its customers have complex needs, with the IPM software helping, inter alia, to manage and process complex contracts and licensing requirements and Brand Vision helping marketers/licensees to accelerate their digital strategy to allow them to manage, inter alia, large volumes of content and associated usage rights. |
| |
· | Blue chip and loyal customer base - The Group has a blue-chip customer base, with customers such as Pearson, L'Oréal, Hachette Livre and Marvel Entertainment. Its customers include some of the largest licensors who drive significant licensing revenue as well as three of the "big five" French publishers. Through IPM Suite, FADEL's larger customers have achieved significant ROI from cost efficiencies and licensing revenue growth opportunities not available using legacy solutions. As a result, the Group has reported exceptionally low churn in customers using IPM Suite following the implementation phase, to date. |
| |
· | Established sales and marketing strategy - The Group has an established direct and indirect sales strategy. The Group has salespersons in the US, UK and France. Indirect sales are through the Group's established partnership and reseller arrangements. In respect of marketing, FADEL is considered as a thought-leader in its field - representatives from the Company regularly attend leadership events and are active research contributors and its employees sit on relevant industry boards, such as the BISG. These marketing efforts contribute to general market awareness of FADEL and its solutions. |
| |
· | Strategically positioned to capture market growth - There is fundamental growth in digital content and IP (across industries, geographies and channels) and therefore a growing requirement for solutions to manage this digital content and IP. In the rights and royalty ecosystem (which IPM Suite addresses), a significant proportion of companies are still using more traditional spreadsheet-based methods of managing licenses and royalty calculations, typically using large teams and sometimes legacy royalty systems that are no longer 'fit for purpose'. The digital brand compliance marketplace (which Brand Vision addresses) is still relatively nascent and highly fragmented, with a vast number of large brands bringing their content creation and digital agency function in-house. As companies implement digital transformation strategies, the ROI on an enterprise solution like FADEL is becoming more apparent. |
| |
· | Established low-cost but highly skilled offshore R&D and delivery centre in Lebanon - The Group has operated its own offshore R&D and delivery centre in Beirut, Lebanon since 2006. In doing so, the Group benefits from the high level of education in that country, including Engineering and Business majors, the multi-lingual capabilities of the employees and low cost and low attrition attained by operating in Lebanon. This has proven to be a strategic competitive differentiator for the Company allowing it to expand its product and service offerings while maintaining high customer satisfaction at low operating costs. |
| |
· | Highly experienced and well-connected Board -The FADEL Board, both Executive and Non-Executive, is constituted of prominent and experienced figures in the industry including founder and CEO Tarek Fadel and CFO Vicary Gibbs. The FADEL Board has collective experience in high growth software environments, alongside strong industry relations. The Directors believe that this will enable FADEL to pursue its growth strategy and ensure strong origination for new opportunities. Additionally, between them the Board has public market experience of both AIM and other exchanges. |
| |
· | Strong financial record with scalable revenue model - In the twelve-month period ended 31 December 2021, FADEL generated revenue of $12.0 million (31 December 2020: $7.8 million) of which 54 per cent. was recurring. Year-on-year revenue growth was 53 per cent, with a two-year CAGR of 50 per cent. In the six-month period ended 30 June 2022, FADEL generated revenue of $6.7 million, of which 62 per cent. was recurring. At the core of the revenue model is a SaaS platform generating subscription revenue. IPM Suite, which sits as the foundation of the business, typically has large contract values of which a significant amount is related to services, whilst the service revenue is non-recurring in nature, the integration complexity results in defensive revenue. Brand Vision, which has grown out of the acquisition of IDS in FY 21 has diversified our product revenue. Going forward, the Company expects to see a higher proportion of subscription revenue coming from Brand Vision, where its products can be deployed quickly with limited integration requirements and lower implementation costs. The Directors believe that the Company has a defensible revenue with significant upside potential. |
| |
· | Strong current trading - Revenue for the six month period from 30 June 2022 was $6.5 million1, resulting in expected revenue for FY 22 of $13.1 million1 (unaudited management information). This was a 10.1 per cent. year-on-year increase (FY 21: $12.0 million), notwithstanding foreign exchange headwinds the global economic environment. In respect of recurring revenue, there was 34 per cent. year-on-year growth (Subscription and support: $8.7 million, unaudited, FY 21: $6.5 million) with a significant contribution from subscription sales in Brand Vision, including a full financial year's contribution from IDS. |
|
|
· | A clear growth strategy - The Group intends to use the proceeds to pursue its organic growth strategy to expand its business and the breadth of its operations, hire additional employees, expand into new markets, further invest in research and development and sales and marketing, and incur costs associated with general administration (including expenses related to being a listed company). |
For further information please contact:
Fadel Partners Inc. | |
Tarek Fadel, Chief Executive Officer Vicary Gibbs, Chief Financial Officer | Via Alma PR |
| |
finnCap Ltd (Nomad & Broker) | Tel: +44 (0)20 7220 0500 |
Jonny-Franklin Adams | |
Emily Watts | |
Abigail Kelly | |
Milesh Hindocha | |
| |
Alma PR | Tel: +44(0)20 3405 0205 |
Josh Royston | fadel@almapr.co.uk |
Andy Bryant | |
Matthew Young | |
About FADEL Partners Inc.
FADEL is a leading developer of cloud based brand compliance and rights and royalty management software, working with some of the world's leading licensors and licensees across media, entertainment, publishing, consumer brands and hi-tech/gaming companies. The Group combines the power of rights management and content compliance with sophisticated content services, AI-powered visual search and image and video recognition.
FADEL has two solutions, being IPM Suite (rights and royalty management for publishers and licensing) and Brand Vision (an integrated platform for Brand Compliance & Monitoring that includes Content Services, Digital Rights Management, AI-Powered Content Tracking, a Brand Monitor, and 100 million Ready-to-License Images).
The Group's main country of operation is the United States, where it is headquartered in New York, with further operations in the UK, Lebanon, France, Canada and India.
For more information please visit the Group's website at: www.fadel.com.
This announcement is not for publication or distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States of America. This announcement is not an offer of securities for sale into the United States. The securities referred to herein have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States, except pursuant to an applicable exemption from registration. No public offering of securities is being made in the United States.
RNS may use your IP address to confirm compliance with the terms and conditions, to analyse how you engage with the information contained in this communication, and to share such analysis on an anonymised basis with others as part of our commercial services. For further information about how RNS and the London Stock Exchange use the personal data you provide us, please see our Privacy Policy.