Year-on-year financial highlights

• Strong revenue performance of £53.1m in FY18 (2017: £62.7m) with operating profit remaining broadly flat at £7.7m (2017: £8.2m). Gross margin increased by +4.2% against 2017, benefiting from the investment in higher-margin services.
• Strong annualised EBITDA run rate for FY18 in excess of £12m
• These investments had a dramatically positive impact in all key areas of management KPIs: cloud professional services +120%; cloud managed services +23% and managed services +10%
• Average number of employees at 273 (2017: 260), demonstrating continued investment in attracting and retaining top talent

Operational highlights

• Significantly, ANS’ Microsoft Gold Cloud Partner and AWS Advanced Partner status became even more important and pushed us firmly into the UK’s #1 Cloud Service Provider.
• The key public sector market has been further bolstered with ANS being awarded places on several prestigious public sector frameworks including G Cloud 10, Technology Products 2 and Technology Services 2.  This makes ANS a uniquely positioned independent Cloud Services Provider partnering in the UK public sector.
• Named among top companies to inspire Europe by the London Stock Exchange Group.
• We have also been recognised as the 18^th best company to work for as voted for by the Sunday Times Top 100 companies; a fantastic achievement which once again reflects the hard work and commitment of all members of the team at ANS.
• Significant investments within the Cloud Services practices throughout the company were made during FY17 & FY18 and amounted to over £2.5m in staff costs alone.

Leading cloud services provider, ANS Group, has announced a transformational year in 2018 with strong performance across all financial metrics, including revenues of £53.1m and a gross profit of £21.5m, with annualised adjusted EBITDA run rate in excess of £12m.

While the deliberate move away from low-margin hardware sales had the expected result of lowering overall revenue by 10%, this strategic decision has allowed the company to refocus on cloud-based solutions with a greater value proposition.

In the year to 31^st March 2018, ANS also focused on making investments in restructuring, retraining and re-skilling the team, in order to prepare the business for a strong performance in FY19.

The result of this strategic decision is demonstrated in the quality of earnings improvement with gross margin up by +4.2% on a like-for-like basis (2018: 40.4%; 2017: 36.2%).

 Commenting on the results, Paul Shannon, CEO at ANS said: “Moving away from selling hardware was a key milestone in ANS’ journey to becoming a true transformational leader in the UK’s cloud market. This has enabled us to channel all of our focus and expertise into delivering the industry’s most advanced and innovative cloud platforms, helping customers to maximise the potential cloud has to offer.

“As a result of this strategic decision, we have won several key public and private cloud contracts with AO.com, Sorted.com, Royal London, Euro car Parts, the University of Leeds, Northumbria NHS  and Salix Homes.

Demand for ANS’ portfolio of Assessment Services has increased as organisations look for partners who can help them understand how best to adopt next generation technology to successfully deliver their business ambitions. Utilising a truly agnostic, modular output has proven to be both strategically sound and highly popular with customers.

As we strive to deliver innovative and pioneering technology to empower our customers, our mission statement continues to ring true: we remain committed to providing our customers with innovative technology, world class expertise and exceptional service, enabling them to drive their business forward. I am extremely confident in the team’s ability to achieve our targets for 2019 and beyond.”