Seamless Distribution - Interim Report, Second Quarter of 2017

STOCKHOLM, August 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

April – June 2017

• Net sales for the period SEK 58.5 million (71.1)
• Operating loss for the period SEK -33.6 million (-17.2)
• Loss after tax for the period SEK -38.1 million (-17.3)
• Earnings per share SEK -0.65 (-0.36)
• Cash flow before changes in working capital for the period -29.7 (-14.1) 

Significant events during the period April – June 2017

• Seamless Distribution Systems AB (SDS) announces the launch of Micro Credit service for resellers of mobile airtime. It is the first of its kind service that provides a unique value proposition of business continuity and improved market penetration by enhancing resellers' ability to always provide top-up. This service will be introduced to the market, enabling resellers to continue providing electronic airtime top-up even when they do not have adequate prepaid airtime credit available.
• Seamless Distribution AB has sold 1,000,000 of its earlier repurchased shares. With this transaction Seamless now holds no shares in itself.
• MeaWallet A/S ("MeaWallet") signs a license agreement with Tier 1 Card Issuer.
  MeaWallet will be responsible for installing and setting up the solution in the customer's local datacenter. Through this agreement, the card issuer can provide digital and mobile wallet services to its four million card holding clients, supporting four card schemes – local scheme, Mastercard, Visa and American Express, as well as the converged wallet service Masterpass. This is the first project where MeaWallet will be delivering digital cards running on the American Express network, positioning the MeaWallet as one of the most complete Token Hubs in this industry.
• iGaming Cloud partners with Seqr™ enabling them to offer the innovative mobile payment solution as a new digital payment option for its customers.
• Seamless wins the prestigious Global Telecom Business Award for its project "Be Your Own Boss" 
• On 8 June 2017, SEQR Group AB has sold the intellectual property rights tied to the transaction platform ERS 360 to SDS. SEQR Group AB has transferred its claim against Seamless Distribution Systems AB of SEK 25,000,000 to Seamless Distribution AB.
• On 20 June 2017, Seamless Distribution AB provided a loan to SDS. At the same time all the claims between the two companies were offset against the capital amount on the SDS loan to Seamless Distribution AB, which resulted in a net debt from SDS to Seamless Distribution AB of SEK 54,282,423. For further information please refer to page 8.

Significant events after the close of the reporting period

• Seamless Distribution AB appoints new CEO. The Board of Seamless Distribution AB has today terminated Peter Fredell's employment as CEO of Seamless. Tomas Jalling, who has been employed by Seamless as Head of Legal since December 2012, becomes Seamless' new CEO.
• Seamless Distribution AB appoints new operating Management. The new operating Management team, who will work with and support Tomas Jalling as CEO is formed from: James Connelley, Head of SEQR, Lars Sandtorv, Head of MeaWallet, Radoslaw Kozlowski, Head of Delivery, Martin N. Larsson, Head of Treasury/IR, Martin Schedin, CFO/HR, Geir Norlund, CIO.
• On July 21 the listing of SDS on Nasdaq First North Premier was completed. Through the divestment of SDS, Seamless Distribution AB receives 191 MSEK. Seamless Distribution ABs remains with a holding of 23 % of the shares in SDS corresponding to a value of approximately 53 MSEK.
• SEQR Payments AB, part of Seamless Distribution AB, has been approved by Mastercard as an issuer of Mastercard products in Europe. The partnership with Mastercard will enable Seqr to use its e-money license to open up innovative mobile payment opportunities within the European market and to drive forwards its growth agenda within the mobile payments industry.
• Seamless delivers contactless payment solution to a Hungarian Bank.
  MeaWallet A/S ("MeaWallet"), part of Seamless Distribution AB, has signed an agreement with a Hungarian bank for delivery of MeaWallet's proprietary technology for contactless card payments. The bank is one of the major banks in Hungary, a market where more than half of the payment cards in use have contactless capabilities. The solution will enable the bank's clients to perform contactless card payments through the bank´s existing banking application. This means that the subsidiary MeaWallet enters into a new geographical market. Furthermore, the agreement provides proof that the mobile payment solutions market is developing in the direction that MeaWallet has positioned itself for.
  The total order value in addition to an agreed upfront fee of 1MSEK is currently unknown, but is estimated to be between 3 and 5 MSEK.

CEO´s COMMENT 

Business and finance review 

The recent period has seen substantial positive change at Seamless. Management is intensively engaged on multiple fronts. First and foremost, the recent successful completion of the IPO of SDS provided critical funds to stabilise the company's financial position. Numerous actions are in progress to further solidify our financial situation in the coming months. These actions relate not only to funding, but also to cash burn. The blunt reality is that Seamless does not at this point have access to unlimited funds, and as such, Management is making critical choices to focus resource on highest probability of success investments. Management is also continuing to address the Company's structure in a way that will enable successful delivery of our growth strategy, but also reduces expenditures in non-critical areas. We have set a goal to move steadily toward cash flow breakeven by mid-2018. 

Actions taken by Management and the new CEO to optimise our focus will produce annualised cash-cost benefits in excess of 15 MSEK by Q4 of this year. In tandem with this, investment in key focus areas will be enhanced. Looking at each of the three business lines: 

e-Products 

Actions already taken by Management and the new CEO will enable our largest revenue generating activity to move into profit as of Q4, following a multi-year period of reported losses. A reallocation of resource into markets and contracts that are profitable will likely produce some reduction in revenues as we move forward. Our core market, Sweden, has the unusual situation of being a low profit duopoly, and we are addressing loss-making contracts. In other markets, we are moving to increase pricing and reduce exposure to loss-making endeavors. Product innovation will be maintained, such that we can continue to offer enhanced revenue generating opportunities to our clients. The goal is for e-Products to become sustainably profitable as we move forward. 

Seqr 

Under the new leadership of James Connelley (previously Head of Sales for Seqr), our core B2C enterprise is moving rapidly to focus on highest probability of success opportunities, in revenue and profit pools that have a high chance of sustained growth. In addition, we are moving aggressively to monetise opportunities with major global vendors such as MastercCard. Seqr will continue to support our QR offering, particularly with a view to enabling global vendor-partners. Until now, revenue traction in Seqr has disappointed our earlier expectations, especially when compared to peer European fintech disruptors of similar maturity. Fortunately, Seqr is blessed not only with outstanding people in our development and sales areas, but product functionality that is considered amongst the best available in the market. The consumer experience will become front-and-center of our efforts, and a focus on key markets where we believe we can gain meaningful traction, or build on existing strengths - such as Sweden, Belgium and Germany. In B2B, Seqr is working closely with MeaWallet to connect with potential partners and clients to offer comprehensive payment/wallet solutions. 

MeaWallet 

Acquired by Seamless in July 2016, MeaWallet is now showing acceleration in its order pipeline, and signed orders. MeaWallet is one of the leading European wallet providers, with solutions supporting Mastercard, Visa, Amex and local schemes, and MeaWallet's platform is now live in 20 countries. The long decision-making cycle of financial institutions results in some 'lumpiness' in quarterly delivery, but with PSD2 now a reality in Europe, MeaWallet is well positioned to accelerate growth as we move into 2018. Our goal is for MeaWallet to deliver profitable growth in the period ahead, in spite of the increase in resource required to deliver the anticipated increase in volumes. 

In summary 

The new Management team understands fully that our shareholders demand, and should receive, an acceptable return on their investment. Management also understands equally well that this can only come if the Company delivers products that offer economically beneficial solutions, and are of genuine enhanced day-to-day utility to users. These will be the guiding principles for the Company as we move forward.

Tomas Jalling 

CEO   

This is the type of information that Seamless Distribution AB (publ) is required to disclose pursuant to the Securities Market Act and/or the Financial Instruments Trading Act. The information was submitted for publication on August 10, 2017 at 08:50 a.m. (CET).

For further information, please contact:
Martin N. Larsson
Head of Treasury/IR
[email protected]
+46-8-564-878-00

About Seamless

Seamless is one of the world's largest suppliers of payment systems for mobile phones. Founded in 2001 and active in 35 countries, Seamless handles more than 5.3 billion transactions annually through 675 000 active sales outlets. Seamless has three main business areas including the SDS/transaction switch, the technology provider for the distribution of e-products and the mobile payment platform SEQR. Seamless shares are traded on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm www.seamless.se

The Seamless Interim Report 2017 for the period April-June 2017 has been approved for publication by the Board of Directors, by its decision on August 9, 2017. This financial report has not been subjected to a review by the Company's auditors.

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SOURCE Seamless Distribution AB

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