REG - Zoo Digital Group - Trading and Debt Facilities Update

Zoo DigitalAnnouncement

13/05/2024 07:00

For best results when printing this announcement, please click on link below:
http://newsfile.refinitiv.com/getnewsfile/v1/story?guid=urn:newsml:reuters.com:20240513:nRSM0495Oa&default-theme=true

RNS Number : 0495O  Zoo Digital Group PLC  13 May 2024

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of
EU Regulation 596/2014 as retained as part of UK law by virtue of the European
Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 as amended. Upon the publication of this
Announcement, this inside information is now considered to be in the public
domain.

 

13 May 2024

 

ZOO DIGITAL GROUP PLC

("ZOO", the "Group" or the "Company")

 

Trading and Debt Facility Renewal Update

 

ZOO Digital Group plc (AIM: ZOO), a leading provider of end-to-end
cloud-based localisation and media services to the global entertainment
industry, today provides an update on trading and its debt facilities.

 

Debt Facility and Cash position

 

Further to the trading statement of 26 March 2024, the Company has since
renewed for a further twelve months debt facilities of up to $3 million with
HSBC. These facilities remain fully undrawn but provide the Company with
enhanced financial flexibility for working capital purposes in an improving
market environment.

 

Year-end net cash on 31 March 2024 was $5.3 million, significantly better than
indicated previously following stronger collections than anticipated in the
month of March.

 

Current Trading

 

Customer demand has continued to recover with March 2024 invoicing the highest
month since April 2023 following acceleration of the Company's pipeline. Work
has continued to expand throughout March and April 2024 and visibility extends
to September 2024. Revenues for FY25 Q1 are expected to be 36% up on FY24 Q4
which, together with recently implemented cost savings, is expected to result
in EBITDA at break-even in Q1.

 

The Company has now received dubbing and subtitling orders from the major film
and TV distributor for which it was recently appointed as a primary vendor as
referenced in the announcement of 26 March 2024.

 

ZOO's strategy remains focused on developing and deploying innovative
technology to provide leading and differentiated end-to-end services to its
customers. This includes the use of Artificial Intelligence to augment and
complement processes where applicable. The strategy is achieved through a
capital-efficient approach involving production hubs in key locations to
provide a 24/7 service offering, which the Board believes will deliver
profitable revenue growth.

 

With market commentators forecasting a return to 2022 levels of entertainment
output in 2025, the Board continues to see opportunities to rebuild revenues
following the significant industry disruptions of FY24 and is confident of at
least meeting FY24 market expectations*.

 

Notice of Full Year Results

 

The Company expects to announce full year results for the period to March 2024
in early August 2024.

 

 

The persons responsible for arranging for the release of this Announcement on
behalf of ZOO are Stuart Green, Chief Executive Officer and Phillip Blundell,
Chief Financial Officer of ZOO.

 

 

* The Company understands market consensus for FY24 to be revenue of $39.7
million, EBITDA adjusted for share based payments loss of $14.0 million and
net cash of $3.7 million.

 

 

 For further enquiries, please contact:

 ZOO Digital Group plc                                                +44 (0) 114 241 3700
 Stuart Green - Chief Executive Officer
 Phillip Blundell - Chief Finance Officer

 Stifel Nicolaus Europe Limited (Nominated Adviser and Joint Broker)  +44 (0) 20 7710 7600
 Fred Walsh / Erik Anderson

 Singer Capital Markets (Joint Broker)                                +44 (0) 20 7496 3000
 Shaun Dobson / Asha Chotai

 Instinctif Partners (Financial PR)                                   +44 (0) 207 457 2020
 Matthew Smallwood / Joe Quinlan                                      zoo@instinctif.com

 

 

About ZOO Digital Group plc:

ZOO Digital supports major Hollywood studios and streaming services to
globalise their content and reach audiences everywhere, by providing leading,
technology-enabled localisation and media services.

Founded in 2001, ZOO Digital operates from hubs in Los Angeles, London, Dubai,
Turkey, South Korea, India, Denmark and Spain with a development and
production centre in Sheffield, UK.

The Group provides media services through its platforms that include: ZOOsubs,
ZOOdubs and ZOOstudio. Its full-service proposition delivers the end-to-end
services required to prepare both original and catalogue content for digital
distribution; these services include dubbing, subtitling & captioning,
metadata creation & localisation, mastering, artwork localisation and
media processing. Alongside this offering, ZOO also provides its customers
with management platforms and strategic solutions to support their own
internal globalisation operations.

ZOO is a go-to service partner for media businesses looking to globalise their
content across different territories, languages and distribution platforms.
Using its innovative technology-enabled approach, ZOO helps its customers to
reduce time to market, lower costs and deliver high quality products to their
global audiences. The business has frameworks in place with all major
Hollywood studios and streaming services. Its customers include Disney,
NBCUniversal, HBO and Paramount Global.

ZOO's competitive advantage arises from three interlinking factors - the
leading role it has played in the digital transformation of its sector; the
world class proprietary platforms that it develops to enable this
transformation; and the global supply chain of thousands of freelancers,
working collaboratively in ZOO's platforms, which delivers services that scale
easily to meet demand. These factors combine to make ZOO uniquely placed to
capitalise on new market opportunities in a fast-paced and constantly evolving
industry.

 

www.zoodigital.com (http://www.zoodigital.com/)

 

This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contact
rns@lseg.com (mailto:rns@lseg.com)
 or visit
www.rns.com (http://www.rns.com/)
.

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 (https://www.lseg.com/privacy-and-cookie-policy)
.   END  TSTURVVRSOUVAAR