Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Pensions and benefts software consultancy Thomsons OnlineBenefits has released an impressive set of maiden results following its January buyout by private equity firm ABRY in (see Thomsons benefits from ABRY investment).
Revenue for the year to 31 December was up 19% to £32.7m, and pre-tax profits were up almost three times to £6.4m, giving Thomsons a pre-tax margin of 19.6% vs. just 6.4% last year. Profitability appears to have been driven by growth, rather than cost cutting. The company ended the year with 271 employees compared to 279 last time.
At the core of Thomsons' business strategy is its Darwin self-service employee benefits software, which aims to encourage employees ‘to make informed decisions about their benefits portfolio’, by finding ‘independent and unbiased answers to all their questions, and make informed and confident choices’. Take up appears to be heading in the right direction, with a 9% increase in the number users during the year, to over 550,000, apparently across 60 countries.
R&D costs in the year were up from £3.9m to £4.2m (or 13% of revenue). CE Michael Whitfield said that the recent PE investment will help Thomsons to continue investing in its software R&D and also explore acquisitions ‘at home and abroad’. Thomsons will need to continue investing, and innovating, in this competitive space, where there are many SaaS startups as well as major HR/pensions players operating like AON Hewitt, Capita and Equiniti.
We will be exploring growth opportunities in the UK pensions and benefits market in a forthcoming report for TechMarketView’s BusinessProcessViews research service.
