All ThingsConsidered - Interim Results

30 September 2022

All Things Considered Group Plc

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

Interim Results for the half year ended 30 June 2022

 

All Things Considered Group Plc (AQSE: ATC), the independent music company housing talent management, live booking, livestreaming and talent services, announces its unaudited interim results for the half year ended 30 June 2022 ("H1 2022").

 

Financial highlights:

• Group consolidated revenue increased 19% to £6.0m (H1 2021: £5.0m)
• Gross profit increased to £2.6m (H1 2021: loss of £0.9m)
• Loss after tax of £0.18m (H1 2021: loss of £2.55m)
•  Operational cash generated of £3.0m (H1 2021: cash absorbed of £1.7m)
• The Group retains a sufficiently healthy net cash position (after current debt) of £3.0 million. The net cash position (after current and long-term debt) as at 30 June 2022 was £1.5m (H1 2021: debt of £1.8m) as a result of the IPO in December 2021, allowing the Group to further grow the Live and Management businesses and to pursue the Group's acquisition plans

 

 

Operational highlights:

• Good progress with both our artists and the recruitment of new artist managers joining the ATC Group
• ATC Live has emerged from lockdown in a strong position and expects to deliver over 6,000 shows in 2022 for its clients
• New client gains across our substantial artist representation businesses in Management and Live Agency which now manage more than 70 and 400 clients respectively
• Established "Company X" in the USA, a new joint venture brand agency with Arrival Artists, servicing our collective client base and third parties

 

Post period and current trading:

• Announced substantial developments for our livestreaming business Driift, including the acquisition of technology and commerce platform Dreamstage, concurrent with £4m additional investment from Deezer into Driift to maintain its market leading position
• Established ATC Experience as a new division to capitalise upon the changing commercial and creative models developing globally across the live entertainment sector
• Strengthened the management team with the addition of Despina Tsatsas, an experienced theatre producer and creative leader, who will head up ATC Experience
• Excluding Driift, we expect the remaining Group businesses in aggregate to show growth in 2022 in line with, or slightly ahead of, expectations
• Taking a prudent view for the 2022 financial outlook for, and additional investment in, Driift (as also enlarged by the transaction announced today), the livestreaming division is expected to report a loss this year. As Driift is currently a significant contributor to the Group's consolidated results, the Group now expects to show a small overall loss for the 2022 financial year 

 

Adam Driscoll, Chief Executive Officer of ATC Group plc, commented: "These results, covering the first six months of the year demonstrate the resilience of our business model and market relevance of our full-service artist offering aligned to a rapidly changing music industry. We are pleased with the overall progress achieved in the first half of the year, both in terms of financial performance and operational developments, with many lead indicators performing as expected."

 

"As we enter the second half, the pipeline of opportunities is encouraging across the business divisions. Driift continues to cement its leading position within the fast-evolving livestreaming sector and we are delighted to continue to attract investment to scale that business. The opportunity ahead is significant as artists increasingly look to partner with creative agencies aligned to their interest, and we believe we have the right model, focus and platform to achieve significant growth"

 

 

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of article 7 of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No 596/2014.

 

For more information, please contact:

 

ATC Group plc	Via Alma PR
Adam Driscoll, CEO
Rameses Villanueva, CFO
Canaccord Genuity	+44(0)20 7523 8000
Aquis Corporate Adviser and Broker
Adam James / Patrick Dolaghan
Alma PR	+44(0)20 3405 0205
Financial PR
Hilary Buchanan/ Lily Soares Smith

 

Notes to Editors

 

ATC Group is a prominent independent music company offering live rights, live agency, production, artist management and investment and a range of other music artist services. ATC Group is the only independently owned company in the industry housing talent management, live booking, livestreaming and talent services within the same group.

 

The Company has an established, long-standing client base with over 70 artists on its management roster and over 400 acts on the live roster. One of its livestreaming offerings, Driift, has delivered shows with Niall Horan, Andrea Bocelli, Kylie, Johnny Marr, The Smile and others, selling over 600,000 tickets across 190 countries since being established in June 2020.

 

The Group's six key divisions, grouped under two segments, are:

·      Artist management and development

·      ATC Management - artist management

·      ATC Live - live event booking agency for artists

·      ATC Services- Promotional, agency services and technology solutions provider

·      ATC Experience - creator and distributor of artist-led digital and in-person experiences

·      Polyphonic - an artist partnerships venture

·      Live streamed events

·      Driift - a global livestreaming business, and Flymachine, a livestreaming platform

 

 

The Group is headquartered in London, with offices in Los Angeles, New York and Copenhagen and is led by an experienced management team who have operated across multiple music industry sectors.

 

For more information see: www.atcgroupplc.com

 

 

Chief Executive's Review

 

Overview

 

The interim results to 30 June 2022 represent the first six months of trading of the Group since being admitted to the Aquis Growth Market in December 2021.  The Board is pleased to deliver a strong first half of double-digit revenue growth and improved profitability, demonstrating that the Group's strategy and positioning within the music industry is robust and delivering in line with our vision.

 

Strategy

The Group has the advantages of a resilient and diversified business model that captures income and value from multiple verticals within the music industry.  This ensures that we can benefit from the overall growth of the market through cycles, including the periods of significant disruption as was demonstrated by our growth through the pandemic,

The Group's model is to provide a fully integrated service empowering creators and artists to build optimum commercial structures to generate increased revenues and profits.

Our substantial artist representation businesses in Management (more than 70 clients) and Live Agency (more than 400 clients), means that we are in business with the real revenue generators in the industry - the artists. Building new and exciting opportunities for artists and developing a more collaborative model enables us to develop new revenue streams which we can benefit from and is a key growth driver. We have been delivering upon that ambition in 2022.

 

Performance Review

 

Since we last updated on the Group's progress in our annual report, which was published on 27^th June, we have continued to be encouraged by many of our lead indicators.

 

ATC Live

The live music industry continues to make a sustained come back after the challenges of the Covid shutdown. At ATC Live we continue to perform in line with our expectations, notwithstanding the fact that the first two months of the year were challenged by continuing Covid disruptions. Despite having experienced a record number of cancelled or rescheduled dates in the first part of the year, ATC Live has emerged in a strong position and expects to deliver circa 6,000 shows for its clients in 2022. This augurs well for future periods.

 

ATC Management

In our management businesses we are seeing good progress with both our artists and the recruitment of new managers joining the ATC Group, with overall performance in line with expectations.  Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have recently completed a hugely successful tour across multiple territories. The Smile continue to receive plaudits for their shows and have sold out multiple venues across North America during Q4 2022. Amaarae is concluding a substantial new recording deal and Jonny Marr is touring the US with The Killers. We recently took on the management of globally recognised artists The Hives and are building exciting plans with them for 2023 and beyond. We have recently announced that they will be the support act for The Arctic Monkeys on their upcoming stadium tour. In the US, Cuco and Santigold have just released their latest albums to critical and commercial acclaim. Newer developing artists on our roster such as underscores, The Goa Express and Izzi De-Rosa continue to excite business partners and audiences alike.

 

Our composer roster within management is showing growth and success with clients such as Isobel Waller Bridge, Ben Frost and Brendan Angelides all delivering new projects with a range of global partners including Apple TV and Netflix.

 

Over the last three months we have been delighted to welcome Dan McEvoy, Ben Rafson, Brandon Sánchez and Jordan Alper as new managers joining the ATC team bringing a selection of exciting clients with substantial prospects.

Livestreaming and Driift

Livestreaming came to the fore during the Covid shutdown when the opportunity to sell concert tickets to an 'at home' audience showed the longer-term growth prospects for this new vertical and established the format in the minds of artists and viewers alike. During 2022 Driift has continued to deliver fantastic shows from the likes of Little Mix, Jack Johnson, Westlife and, in the last few days, 5 Seconds of Summer from the Royal Albert Hall, with approximately 25,000 tickets sold for that show.

 

Third party market forecasters continue to predict that livestreaming will be a multi-billion dollar segment over the next 3 to 5 years. Driift's market leading position gives it a substantial opportunity to be the beneficiary of that growth and the acquisition of Dreamstage and the increased support from Deezer, as separately announced today, makes that prospect ever more possible. The acquisition of livestreaming platform Dreamstage provides Driift a new array of ticketing and technology tools to create a market leading 'end-to-end' livestreaming business. The acquisition was delivered alongside a new investment of £4m from Deezer. These combined transactions have substantially strengthened Driift's position in its sector and are a positive development for the Group given the wider context of the growing livestreaming market in which we remain convinced that we can build substantial value.

 

The recent investment round was consistent with our current balance sheet valuation of our Driift equity. As we now hold 32.5% of the combined Driift and Dreamstage business, we will report it as an associated undertaking in future, taking our share of its result into our group income statement.

 

We are taking a prudent view of Driift results for 2022, especially given the increased cost base as we are now reporting a share of the ongoing Dreamstage platform investment. We expect Driift to deliver a loss in 2022 as the business continues to invest in shows and infrastructure to secure its leading position in the market.

 

 

Complementary offerings: ATC Experience, ATC Services and Polyphonic

A key part of our strategy, as noted above, is to develop new business opportunities for our own clients and for other leading artists. Having delivered an online experience for Radiohead in partnership with Epic Games in 2021, we are focussed on building new audience experiences and entertainment offerings and creating new revenue streams.

 

As a result, we have recently established ATC Experience as a new division to capitalise upon the changing commercial and creative models developing globally across the live entertainment sector. This is a new opportunity to drive incremental revenue growth for the Group via co-commission, co-production, investment and partnership strategies. ATC Experience will create and distribute artist-led digital and in-person experiences for global audiences.

 

The division is headed by Despina Tsatsas, an experienced theatre producer and creative leader, who is a great addition to our management team. Despina was most recently the Executive Director of the Young Vic and prior to that was the Executive Producer at Punchdrunk Global.

 

In the USA we have further developed our relationship with live agency Arrival Artists by establishing a new joint venture brand agency, Company X, which will service our collective client base and third parties.  Led by Mara Frankel, who was previously Senior Creative Director for Brand Partnerships at Atlantic Records, we are confident that this new service offering will be welcomed by our clients and will be a new source of profit contribution to the Group.

 

 

Current Trading and FY22 outlook

In aggregate, with the exception of Driift, our Group businesses have performed in line with expectations in the first half of 2022 and we expect that to continue for the full year.

As noted above, in order to cement its market-leading position, the business has invested significantly into Driift in the year to date and following the transactions announced separately today, we will continue to see increased investment in Driift events and in its Dreamstage platform. We feel that our investment to date has been validated by the recent acquisition and new capital injection and expect this to deliver long term value to shareholders. However, Driift will report a loss this year which will be a significant contributor to our Group results and we now expect to show a small overall loss for the financial year.  Excluding Driift, we expect the remaining Group businesses in aggregate to show growth in 2022 in line with, or slightly ahead of, expectations.

The Group retains a sufficiently healthy net cash position (after current debt) of £3.0 million and net cash position (after current and long-term debt) of £1.5 million.

 

 

Chief Financial Officer's Review

 

Overview

 

During the period, despite the presence of COVID related global lockdowns during the first quarter of 2022, the Group's results continued to demonstrate resilience.

 

Revenue

 

Across the period, the Group's consolidated revenue posted 19% growth (H1 2022:  £6.0 m vs H1 2021:  £5.0m) mainly due to the following:

 

·  Artist management and development - The Services division has earned significant gross commission from its consulting services of approximately $2.2 million (c.£1.75 million) while other divisions have benefited from the uptick in live performances and management services activities during the second quarter of 2022.     

 

·      Livestreamed events - Driift generated £1.85 million in 2022, a 36% decrease over an exceptional comparative period (2021: £3.3 million) due to the one-off revenue stream from 'Glastonbury's Live at Worthy Farm'.    In May 2021, Driift delivered £1.7 million in gross revenues by livestreaming the event which was not replicated in 2022 which contributed to the decline for H12022.  Excluding the revenue generated from Glastonbury in H12021, revenue in this division increased by 12 % (2022:  £1.85 million vs 2021:  £1.65million) as Driift continued to tap into the consumer's demand for in-home shows via streaming during this period.

 

Administrative expenses

 

Administrative expenses increased by 53% from £2.01 million in 2021 to £3.07 million in 2022.    The increase is due mainly to the additional overheads of the artist management and development businesses/divisions that were acquired in 2021; new hirings in the live and management businesses which have enabled us to grow the artist, writer, producer and composer rosters, and group services which resulted in an increase in salary cost;  increase in professional and consultancy fees related to the post IPO compliance work and completed and ongoing business deals; and, travelling expenses due to increased activities in the live and management businesses in 2022

 

Conversely, Driift's overheads decreased by 11% or £0.05k (2022:  £0.42m vs 2021:  £0.47 m). 

 

Loss Before Tax and Non-controlling interest (NCI)

 

The loss before tax and non-controlling interest decreased by 90.2% (H1 2022: loss of £0.17 million, H12021: loss of £2.55 million).    The loss was mainly due to losses incurred in Driift in May 2021 arising from the Glastonbury event which was disrupted by technical issues caused by a third-party supplier that resulted in customer refunds and a reduction in ticket sales.

 

Excluding the  net loss of the Glastonbury event, the net loss before tax and NCI improved by £0.41 million in 2022 (H1 2022: £0.172 million vs H1 2021: £0.213 million) due mainly to the significant commission earned by the Services division and the reversal of losses in the UK management business during the period.

 

IPO and net cash/(debt)

 

The Group's net cash position (after current and long-term debt) was £1.5 million which is a significant improvement over its net debt position in 2021 of £1.82 million.  The Group listed on the Apex segment of the Aquis Growth Market in December 2021 and raised a total of £4.1m, before costs, which improved its cash position and allowed the Group to further grow the Live and Management businesses by hiring new agents, and managers.  It also provides additional working capital to further develop Group businesses and to pursue the Group's acquisition plans.

 

Financing costs of £0.077m (2021: £0.045m) was comprised mainly of interest expenses on loans.

 

 

 

 

	2022	2021
Current
-  Cash and cash equivalents	8,398,106	1,864,823
-  Funds held on behalf of clients	(4,905,279)	(600,099)
-  Short-term borrowings	(334,443)	(780,604)
-  Right of use liabilities (ST)	(142,041)	(167,090)
Net cash/(debt) after current debt	3,016,343	317,030
Long term
-  Long term borrowings	(1,324,199)	(1,823,019)
-  Right of use liabilities (LT)	(176,957)	(318,381)
	(1,501,156)	(2,141,400)
Net cash/(debt)	1,515,187	(1,824,370)

 

Earnings per share

 

Basic and diluted earnings per share for the period was (1.87) pence per share (H1 2021: (38.12) pence per share)

 

Going Concern

 

The accounts have been prepared on a going concern basis. The Directors have a reasonable expectation that the Group has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future, based on projections for at least twelve months from the date of approval of the interim accounts.

 

 

 

Consolidated statement of comprehensive income
				Unaudited Six months				Unaudited Six months			Audited Year
				ended				ended			ended
				30 June				30 June			31 December
				2022				2021			2021
		Notes		£				£			£
Revenue		2		6,015,313				5,037,428			9,143,638
Cost of sales		2				(3,413,243)			(5,965,860)			(8,297,894)
Gross profit/(loss)						2,602,070			(928,432)		845,744
Other operating income		3		352,402				437,764			1,163,496
Administrative expenses		4				(3,068,380)			(2,007,125)			(5,390,877)
Provision for amounts owed by associates and joint ventures			-			-			-			-
Operating loss		2				(113,908)			(2,498,127)			(3,381,637)
Share of results of associates and joint ventures		5				18,908			(5,524)		167,568
Finance income				7				5			4,852
Finance costs						(77,365)			(45,286)			(96,968)
Provision against amounts owed by participating interests						-			(334)			(333)
Adjusted loss before tax					(172,358)				(2,548,932)			(2,689,783)
IPO and related costs					-				-       -			(616,735)
Loss before taxation						(172,358)			(2,548,932)			(3,306,518)
Income tax expense						(6,627)			(1,152)			(1,256)
Loss for the period						(178,985)			(2,550,084)			(3,307,774)
Other comprehensive income:
Currency translation differences				53,813					2,790			(5,208)
Revaluation gain on unlisted investments                                                                     53,638                                 -            139,061
Total comprehensive income for the period						(71,534)			(2,547,294)			(3,173,921)
Loss for the financial period is attributable to:
- Owners of the parent company						(100,825)			(1,645,234)			(2,353,468)
- Non-controlling interests						(78,160)			(904,850)			(954,306)
						(178,985)			(2,550,084)			(3,307,774)
Total comprehensive income for the period is attributable to:
- Owners of the parent company						6,626			(1,642,444)			(2,219,615)
- Non-controlling interests						(78,160)			(904,850)			(954,306)
						(71,534)			(2,547,294)			(3,173,921)

 

Earnings per share
Basic and diluted (In pence)                                                          6							(1.87)									(38.12)						(34.51)
Consolidated statement of financial position
					Unaudited						Unaudited							Audited
					As at 30 June						As at 30 June							As at 31 December
					2022						2021							2021
					£						£							£
ASSETS
Non-current assets
Goodwill					1,135,403						902,187							1,135,403
Property, plant and equipment					367,268						458,635							398,506
Investments					187,336						165,844							244,604
					1,690,007						1,526,666							1,778,513
Current assets
Trade receivables and other current assets					2,569,897						2,744,123							2,558,201
Cash and cash equivalents					8,398,106						1,864,824							5,532,272
sni
					10,968,003						4,608,947							8,090,473
Total assets					12,658,010						6,135,613							9,868,986
EQUITY
Called up share capital					95,840						34,358							95,840
Share premium account					3,983,970						2,917,969							3,983,970
Merger reserve					2,883,611						-							2,883,611
Currency translation reserve					44,063								11,557						(9,750)
Retained earnings						(4,933,832)							(5,303,784)						(4,898,864)
Equity attributable to the shareholders of the parent company						2,073,652							(2,339,900)						2,054,807
Non-controlling interests						117,667							(982,829)						197,649
Total equity						2,191,319							(3,322,729)						2,252,456
LIABILITIES
Non-current liabilities
Borrowings					1,324,199						1,823,019							1,676,986
Other creditors					59,058						-							53,085
Right of use lease liabilities					176,957						318,381							248,238
					1,560,214						2,141,400							1,978,309
Current liabilities
Trade and other payables					8,429,994						6,369,249							5,373,866
Borrowings					334,443						780,603							124,068
Right of use lease liabilities					142,040						167,090							140,287
					8,906,477						7,316,942							5,638,221
Total liabilities					10,466,691						9,458,342							7,616,530
Total equity and liabilities					12,658,010						6,135,613							9,868,986