Press Release

24 March 2011

 

BrainJuicer Group PLC

("BrainJuicer" or "the Company")

 

Final Results for the 12 Months ended 31 December 2010

 

 

Innovative, international online market researcher, BrainJuicer Group PLC (AIM: BJU) today announces its Final Results for the 12 months ended 31 December 2010.

 

Financial Highlights

é	38% revenue growth to £16,360,000 (2009: £11,814,000)
é	35% growth in operating profit to £2,216,000 (2009: £1,645,000)
é	34% increase in pre-tax profit to £2,217,000 (2009: £1,658,000)
é	26% growth in fully diluted earnings per share to 11.3p (2009: 9.0p)
é	117% increase in cash flow before financing activities £1,785,000 (2009: £824,000)
é	687,000 shares bought back for £1,150,000
é	18% increase in cash to £2,770,000 (2009: £2,343,000), and no debt
é	1.8p final dividend proposed, making 2.4p for the year (2009: 1.9p)

 

Operational Highlights

é	UK returned to significant growth (revenue up 42%)
é	Continued strong growth in North America (revenue growth of 61%)
é	New offices in Switzerland and Germany continued to develop, growing revenues by 62% and 41% respectively
é	Opened offices in strategically important markets: China and Brazil
é	Management further strengthened - Chief Operating Officer appointed
é	Introduced two new Juicy products - DigiViduals™ and SatisTraction®
é	Serving 11 of the 20 largest buyers of market research globally
é	Increasing industry recognition: five more awards including Marketing Magazine's Best Research Agency of 2010 and Research Magazine's Best Place to Work

 

Commenting on the Company's results, John Kearon, Chief Juicer of BrainJuicer, said:  "Our 10^th anniversary year was a significant year for everyone at the Company.

As clients increasingly look for greater inspiration and insight from their market research, we've had great success at developing what we call "Juicy" tools - techniques which give our clients more predictive, nuanced and inspiring understandings of consumer behaviours.  Our consistent growth with some of the world's largest businesses and a clutch of industry awards give us confidence we're doing the right things.  Achieving our ambition of becoming a major global agency will mean continuing to invest in Juicy products, opening new offices and attracting the best talent by ensuring our culture is as Juicy as our products.

We're well placed to deliver further growth in 2011 and beyond."

 

For further information, please contact:

BrainJuicer Group PLC	Tel: +44 20 7043 1000
John Kearon, Chief Executive Officer john.kearon@brainjuicer.com
James Geddes, Chief Financial Officer james.geddes@brainjuicer.com

 

Canaccord Genuity Limited	Tel: +44 20 7050 6500
Mark Williams mwilliams@canaccordgenuity.com

 

Media enquiries:

Lauren Tilden, Senior Marketing Associate lauren.tilden@brainjuicer.com

Tel: +1 425 830 1904

CHAIRMAN'S STATEMENT

 

BrainJuicer has had another good year, making progress in operational and strategic as well as financial terms.  2010 revenues increased by 38% to £16,360,000, and operating profit by 35% to £2,216,000.  Once again, our growth was purely organic.

 

Reflecting these results and the encouraging outlook for the business, the Board is proposing a final dividend of 1.8p per share, 38% higher than for 2009.  This would take the full year payment to 2.4p, an increase over 2009 of 26%.

 

The 2010 results reinforce BrainJuicer's record of delivering consistent, strong growth.  Over the last 5 years (since January 2006), revenues and operating profit have grown at an average annual rate of 37% and 47% respectively.  Over the same period, fully diluted earnings per share have grown from -0.9p per share to 11.3p per share.

 

Industry studies from InsideResearch and ESOMAR show that overall spending on market research recovered modestly last year, after declining in 2009 - the first time the industry had declined for many years.  BrainJuicer's growth rate clearly indicates that we again grew market share as our products gained traction, especially among multinational clients.

 

Several key developments in 2010 will stand us in good stead in years to come.  We continued to expand and strengthen our teams to ensure that we have the people needed to facilitate further growth.  In February Alex Batchelor joined in the new role of Chief Operating Officer.  Alex has already made a very positive contribution, and was appointed to the Board in November.

 

BrainJuicer continued to expand geographically last year.  Revenue growth was driven primarily by our UK and US businesses.  Switzerland and Germany made good progress in only their second full year of operation, and we opened new offices in Brazil and China, both key markets for the future.

 

Continued long-term success for BrainJuicer is crucially dependent on the development of innovative new products that add value for our clients.  2010 saw substantial further investment in this area, driven by an expanded "BrainJuicer Labs" team.  We are particularly excited about two new products, DigiViduals™ and SatisTraction®, where early trials have produced very promising results.

 

Our new software technology platform, developed at a cost of £1.6m, was substantively completed last year and is now gradually being phased in.  The platform significantly increases our capacity and provides a more reliable and faster respondent experience.

 

During 2010 Unilever Ventures reduced its holding in BrainJuicer from 37.8% to 14.1%.  Unilever Ventures was an early investor in the business, investing in January 2003.  We understand their need to recycle capital and thank them for their steadfast support.  At the same time we welcome those new investors who have taken a stake in BrainJuicer.

 

Looking ahead, BrainJuicer is well placed to deliver further growth in 2011 and beyond.  At the same time we will continue to invest heavily in our people, products and systems.  Although BrainJuicer punches above its weight in the world of market research, we are currently small in global terms.  We continue to believe we have a tremendous opportunity to become one of the leading players in our industry.  

 

 

Ken Ford

Chairman

24 March 2011

 

CHIEF EXECUTIVE'S STATEMENT

 

BrainJuicer is all about understanding people.  We think they're fascinating, and we're curious about how people tick.  What motivates them?  What drives their decisions?  We're looking for answers to these questions, and pursuing better ways to understand and predict human behaviour.

 

We take recent discoveries about human behaviour in psychology and neuroscience, in sociology and behavioural economics, and create unique and industry challenging market research tools from them.  We have developed a suite of what we call "Juicy" products, which give our clients predictive, nuanced and inspiring understandings of consumer behaviours.

 

To date we have created three Juicy products measuring and enhancing the potential of clients' insights (Insights Optimizer™), new products and or services (Predictive Markets) and communications (CommScan™).  As with all our Juicy products, each one fundamentally challenges the current industry-wide approach.  Given their controversial nature, each product has taken years of experimentation to refine and to acquire the large-scale verification needed to convince clients of their significantly superior understanding and predictive capability.

 

Our clients are responding.  Revenue from our Juicy products grew 31% in 2010 and we are developing trusted advisor relationships within our large multinational clients.  We served around 165 clients in 2010, and repeat business remains high: clients representing 89% of 2009 revenue returned for more in 2010.

 

Our reputation within the industry is also continuing to grow.  In 2010 we won five more awards, including the Best Research Agency of 2010 and Best Place to Work, Best Paper and the David Winton Innovation Award for Emotion-into-Action™ advertising work, and the Jay Chiat Gold award for our DigiViduals™ research robots.

 

The Way we Work - ensuring our culture is as juicy as our products

Becoming a major force in the market research industry will take a great many talented and highly motivated people.  To attract those people and bring out the best in them, we need to ensure our culture is as Juicy as our products.  To that end, we have been applying our creative thinking to the way we run the business.  Central to our culture is to help staff find their drive - and to find your drive: know your purpose, gain mastery and seek autonomy.

 

Purpose.  Instead of fitting staff to company prescribed roles, we're encouraging them to seek the type of work they want to do, and then we are investing time and effort to bend the organisation to fit those aspirations.  Whilst there can be difficult organisational implications, we have already seen it provide hugely motivational benefits.  Through this process we've formed our Labs team, developed our operational capability, improved our HR coordination and achieved a highly motivated client team.

 

Mastery.  We are supporting our people with increasing levels of training and development and encouraging a great deal of self-directed learning based on interest.  We have also set up the BrainJuicer Academy with a world class programme to ensure a consistent level of attainment and capability.

 

Autonomy.  We're providing our people with more control over when they work, how they work and where they work.  We believe that by providing our people with sufficient freedom to explore their field and pursue new ideas we can foster an environment that encourages innovation and creativity.

 

Further Innovation

We have continued to invest heavily in our product development, led by our Labs team.  During the year we have worked with a technology partner and developed a new Juicy product - DigiViduals™, for extracting consumer insight from online social media.  "Research robots" are programmed to represent a particular type of person that a client may be interested in: a target audience, a segmentation of customers, a lead consumer or a trend.  These online robots trawl Twitter and other social media looking for comments, videos, pictures, and blogs that the characters could have said or uploaded themselves.  In effect, they are conducting automated mass web ethnography to build up a rich, empathetic, detailed picture of their lives from which understanding, insights and new product ideas can be generated.  Even through the trial period, we generated revenue of £141,000 in 2010 and worked with four multinationals intrigued by the approach. 

 

We have also developed an emotional customer satisfaction measurement tool, SatisTraction®, which uses our award winning FaceTrace® to reveal and measure how customers are feeling.  How customers feel has been shown to be the single most important factor in a brand's growth or decline, so being able to measure it so accurately and easily is a breakthrough in the industry.  We have undertaken early trials with four multinational clients, and generated revenue of £121,000 in 2010.

 

Increased Credibility

To acquire preferred supplier status with an increasing number of our clients requires us to continually expand: our global footprint, our team of talented researchers, our scale of operation, our reputation for innovative research, and our credibility as a global research partner. 

 

2010 saw a significant growth in our global footprint.  We opened BrainJuicer offices in two of the most strategically important markets for our clients: China and Brazil.  We expanded our offices in Germany, Switzerland and the UK, and our former licence partner in Canada became a wholly owned subsidiary.

 

We built the strength and depth of our teams and our Juicy methods are being increasingly referenced in industry conferences and articles.  We were delighted to be voted Supplier of the Year by Del Monte and voted the most innovative research agency in a poll of 700 of our peers in the USA.

 

Credibility takes time to build but eleven years after BrainJuicer was established, we are gaining momentum, and great feedback from clients such as those below bodes well for further growth in 2011 and beyond.

 

"I always look forward to working with BrainJuicer.  They have creative, innovative techniques for getting meaningful feedback from consumers.  No other company I've worked with has been able to provide such rich qualitative texture behind the quantitative numbers.  Plus I'm always impressed with BrainJuicer's ability to present all of the information in such an intuitive, easy-to-use and fun format.  All these factors, combined with the 'can-do' attitude of the account team makes BrainJuicer a pleasure to work with!"

Cathy Seltz, Director, Consumer Insights, McDonald's Asia.

 

"Predictive Markets was incredibly instructive, enlightening and actionable.  We were really able to get behind the creative and understand in intimate detail the emotional effects of our work - and how well it was doing its job.  Very, very helpful."

Fiona Naughton, Global Marketing Development Director, HTC.

 

"BrainJuicer goes above and beyond - in terms of reporting, additional analysis, presenting in person and delivering early.  Innovative tools, specifically Predictive Markets and Concept Optimizer have been invaluable to our innovation process."

Jonathan Weiner, Vice President, Consumer and Customer Strategy and Insights, Del Monte.

 

Growing Delight and Profits

We believe profits are the consequence of doing something awesome and inspiring for our clients.  Our innovative products, our client and employee focus, and our growing credibility are yielding strong financial results.  The potential for growth remains huge.  We're on a long-term mission, and we've moved into our second decade in business with a great sense of anticipation and confidence.

 

 

John Kearon

Chief Juicer

24 March 2011

BUSINESS AND FINANCIAL REVIEW

 

Our 2010 financial results demonstrated once again that we have an attractive and scalable business model.

 

We describe ourselves as a technology enabled consultancy, with all of our research conducted online, via a centralised software platform.  So whilst our research services are designed and delivered by talented researchers, the technology provides efficiency, uniqueness and scale advantages in our operations.

 

We are able to charge at competitive rates, and yet still generate high margins for our services.  This enables us to support a relatively high central overhead - around half of our people are in central functions (the other half being in revenue-generating account management teams) - and still generate attractive profits.  It's primarily within these high central overheads that we're investing for growth, for example in our Labs product development team.

 

Structure

Our account management market research teams are local, close to our clients, and are based in the UK, the US, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Brazil and China.  We also have a presence in Canada supported by our US team, and in Australia via a licence partner.

 

Our support functions are centralised and based predominantly in the UK.  We have a single technology infrastructure, a single operations team, a single financial centre (handling payments, invoicing, and receipts across all of our offices), and single marketing, Labs and software development teams.  This enables us to maintain consistent research methods globally, and to expand into new geographies at low cost and in a simple and controlled way.  Within this framework, account management teams have high degrees of autonomy and are encouraged to be creative in how they respond to client needs, and entrepreneurial in how they develop their businesses.

 

Financial performance

The Company grew revenue by 38% in absolute terms and 36% in constant currency terms, to £16,360,000 (2009: £11,814,000).  Our gross profit, (our main internal financial performance indicator), grew slightly more, by 41%, to £12,622,000 (2009: £8,935,000).  Our gross profit margin rose to 77% from 76% in 2009.

 

Growth was driven primarily by our two biggest teams: the UK and North America, which represented 48% and 25% of our business respectively (in revenue terms).  The UK grew revenue by 42% and North America by 61% (55% in constant currency).  Switzerland and Germany also performed well, growing by 62% (51% in constant currency) and 41% (47% in constant currency) respectively.  However the Netherlands declined by 12% (9% in constant currency), partly due to management changes in that office and partly due to declines in the revenues from its largest client, due to changing research spending patterns within that client.

 

The Company's client base is around 165 companies (2009: around 140 clients), and includes 11 of the world's largest 20 buyers of market research (2009: 11).  Client satisfaction and repeat business remains high with 89% of 2009 revenue represented by clients who have returned in 2010.  We delivered a total of 745 projects in 2010 (2009: 601), and the average revenue per project was £22,000 (2009: £20,000), indicating continued progress in winning larger, more international projects from clients.

 

We have continued to build our teams.  Average headcount increased to 91 people (2009: 70 people).  Administrative expenses grew as a result, by 43% to £10,406,000 (2009: £7,290,000).  Staff costs represented 69% of total administrative costs.  Through efficiency and scale gains, revenue per employee was £180,000, up from £169,000 in 2009.

 

Operating profit grew by 35% to £2,216,000 (2009: £1,645,000) and operating margin was flat at 14% (2009: 14%).  All our established account management teams were profitable, with the UK contributing £4,065,000, North America £1,589,000, and our other established countries £1,651,000. The combined result for our two new countries, Brazil and China, was a loss of £117,000   The total profit contribution of our account management teams was £7,188,000 before allocation of our central overhead costs of £4,972,000.

 

Interest income from our cash balances was negligible.  Our tax charge was £737,000 (2008: £473,000) and the effective tax rate was 33%, up from 29% in 2009, as a result of a higher percentage of our profits being generated from the US where corporation tax rates are comparatively high.  Profit after tax grew 25% to £1,480,000 (2009: £1,185,000).

 

Basic earnings per share grew to 11.7p (2009: 9.2p) and fully diluted earnings per share to 11.3p (2009: 9.0p).  Basic earnings per share is calculated as profit after tax divided by the weighted average number of shares in issue during the year (12,604,214), down from 12,923,663 in 2009.  Fully diluted earnings per share accounts for shares that would be issued on exercise of stock options.  The weighted average number of shares for our diluted earnings per share calculation was 13,101,205 (2009: 13,107,085).

 

The Company generated £1,785,000 of cash flow before financing activities (i.e. dividends, share buy-backs, and stock option share issues), up from £824,000 in 2009.  This high level of cash flow was generated after investing £1,077,000 in our new technology platform and other non-current assets (2009: £470,000).  Our cash flow performance was helped by a reduction in our debtor payback period to 50 days (2009: 75 days), following implementation of a more efficient invoicing process.

 

Our strong cash position, and lack of need for very much capital investment, allowed us to buy back 687,000 of our shares during the year for £1,150,000 (2009: 30,000 shares for £39,000).  We paid £247,000 in dividends (2009 final dividend of £169,000 plus 2010 interim dividend of £78,000), up from £207,000 in 2009.  We received a small amount from stock option share issues, £39,000 (2009: £38,000).

 

Our closing cash balance at the end of 2010 was £2,770,000 up from £2,343,000 at the end of 2009, and we have no debt (2009: nil).  Our cash balance at the end of the year represents 22p per share (2009: 18p).

 

The Company's non-current assets include £1,604,000 of software development in progress.  This represents our new technology platform.  It has taken over 4 years to build, is now substantially completed, and since year-end, has started to be used.  We began amortising the asset in January 2011, over an expected useful economic life of 7 years.

 

The Company paid an interim dividend of 0.6p per share in April 2010, which was earlier in the year than normal so that it preceded the change in tax rates for UK resident higher rate taxpayers on 6 April 2010 (2009: 0.6p per share).  The Board will be proposing a final dividend of 1.8p (net) per share (2009: 1.3p) at the Company's AGM in May.  If approved, the total of the interim and final dividend of 2.4p would be 26% higher than in 2009 (1.9p), and would be broadly in line with the growth in earnings per share.  If approved, the final dividend will be paid on 24 June 2011 to shareholders on the register on 3 June 2011 and the shares will become ex-dividend on 1 June 2011.  We expect to maintain dividend growth broadly in line with earnings per share, going forward.

 

Summary

The Company returned to trend growth in 2010 after lower growth in 2009.  Revenue, profit, earnings per share, cash flow and dividends have all grown strongly.  As in prior years, we have continued to invest in product development, geographic expansion, operations and our technical platform.  We have ambitious investment plans in 2011 - still all organic - as we capitalise on the growing recognition of our vision for market research.

 

James Geddes

Chief Financial Officer

24 March 2011

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED INCOME STATEMENT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 
31 DECEMBER 2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

	2010	2009
Note	£'000	£'000

 

 

Revenue	4			16,360	11,814
Cost of sales				(3,738)	(2,879)
				-----------------------------------------	-----------------------------------------
Gross profit				12,622	8,935
Administrative expenses				(10,406)	(7,290)
				-----------------------------------------	-----------------------------------------
Operating profit	4			2,216	1,645
Investment income				1	13
Finance costs				-	-
				--------------------------------------	--------------------------------------
Profit before taxation				2,217	1,658
Income tax expense	8			(737)	(473)
				--------------------------------------	--------------------------------------
Profit for the financial year				1,480	1,185
				===================================	===================================
Attributable to equity holders of the Company				1,480	1,185
				==================================	==================================

 

Earnings per share for profit attributable

to the equity holders of the Company

Basic earnings per share	9			11.7p	9.2p
Diluted earnings per share	9			11.3p	9.0p

 

All of the activities of the Group are classed as continuing.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2010

 

 

	2010	2009
	£'000	£'000

 

Profit for the financial year		1,480	1,185
Other comprehensive income:
Exchange differences on translating foreign operations		23	(65)
		-----------------------------------	------------------------------------
Other comprehensive income for the year, net of tax		23	(65)
		====================================	====================================
Total comprehensive income for the year and amounts attributable to equity holders		1,503	1,120
		====================================	====================================

 

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEET AS AT 31 DECEMBER 2010

 

 

		2010	2009
	Note	£'000	£'000
ASSETS
Non-current assets
Property, plant and equipment	5	259	112
Intangible assets	6	1,623	862
Financial assets - available for sale investments	7	133	133
Deferred tax asset		97	41
		------------------------------------	------------------------------------
		2,112	1,148
Current assets
Inventories		47	12
Trade and other receivables		4,719	4,073
Cash and cash equivalents		2,770	2,343
		------------------------------------	------------------------------------
		7,536	6,428
		------------------------------------	------------------------------------
Total assets		9,648	7,576
		====================================	====================================
EQUITY
Capital and reserves attributable to equity holders of the Company
Share capital	12	131	129
Share premium account		1,549	1,447
Merger reserve		477	477
Foreign currency translation reserve		172	149
Retained earnings		2,990	2,533
		-----------------------------------	-----------------------------------
Total equity		5,319	4,735
		====================================	====================================
LIABILITIES
Non-current
Provisions		78	28
		------------------------------------	------------------------------------
Non-current liabilities		78	28
Current
Provisions		-	25
Trade and other payables		4,004	2,593
Current income tax liabilities		247	195
		------------------------------------	------------------------------------
Current liabilities		4,251	2,813
		------------------------------------	------------------------------------
Total liabilities		4,329	2,841
		-----------------------------------	-----------------------------------
Total equity and liabilities		9,648	7,576
		====================================	====================================

 

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED CASH FLOW STATEMENT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 
31 DECEMBER 2010

 

	2010	2009
Note	£'000	£'000

 

Net cash generated from operations	11	3,536	1,645
Tax paid		(675)	(364)
		-------------------------------	-------------------------------
Net cash generated from operating activities		2,861	1,281
Cash flows from investing activities
Acquisition of subsidiary, net of cash received		(43)	-
Purchases of property, plant and equipment		(272)	(70)
Purchase of intangible assets		(762)	(357)
Purchase of available for sale financial assets		-	(43)
Interest received		1	13
		-------------------------------	-------------------------------
Net cash used by investing activities		(1,076)	(457)
		-------------------------------	-------------------------------
Net cash flow before financing activities		1,785	824
Cash flows from financing activities
Proceeds from other issuance of ordinary shares		39	38
Dividends paid to owners		(247)	(207)
Purchase of own shares		(1,150)	(39)
		-------------------------------	-------------------------------
Net cash used by financing activities		(1,358)	(208)
		------------------------------------	------------------------------------
Net increase in cash and cash equivalents		427	616
Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of year		2,343	1,727
		-------------------------------	-------------------------------
Cash and cash equivalents at end of year		2,770	2,343
		====================================	====================================

 

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF CHANGES IN EQUITY AS AT 
31 DECEMBER 2010

	Share capital	Share premium account	Merger reserve	Foreign currency translation reserve	Retained earnings*	Total
	£'000	£'000	£'000	£'000	£'000	£'000
At 1 January 2009	126	1,412	477	214	1,398	3,627
Profit for the financial year	-	-	-	-	1,185	1,185
Other comprehensive income:
Currency translation differences	-	-	-	(65)	-	(65)
	------------------------------	------------------------------	---------------------------------	---------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------
Total comprehensive income	-	-	-	(65)	1,185	1,120
Transactions with owners:
Employee share options scheme:
- value of employee services	-	-	-	-	133	133
- proceeds from shares issued	3	35	-	-	-	38
- Deferred tax debited to equity	-	-	-	-	(45)	(45)
- Current tax credited to equity	-	-	-	-	69	69
Dividends paid to owners	-	-	-	-	(207)	(207)
Purchase of own shares	-	-	-	-	(39)	(39)
Employee share incentive award	-	-	-	-	39	39
	------------------------------	------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------
	3	35	-	-	(50)	(12)
	------------------------------	------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------
At 31 December 2009	129	1,447	477	149	2,533	4,735
Profit for the financial year	-	-	-	-	1,480	1,480
Other comprehensive income:
Currency translation differences	-	-	-	23	-	23
	------------------------------	------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------
Total comprehensive income	-	-	-	23	1,480	1,503
Transactions with owners:
Employee share options scheme:
- value of employee services	-	-	-	-	308	308
- proceeds from shares issued	1	37	-	-	-	38
- Current tax credited to equity	-	-	-	-	66	66
Dividends paid to owners	-	-	-	-	(247)	(247)
Purchase of own shares	-	-	-	-	(1,150)	(1,150)
Non-employee share based payment	1	65	-	-	-	66
	------------------------------	------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------
	2	102	-	-	(1,023)	(919)
	------------------------------	------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------
At 31 December 2010	131	1,549	477	172	2,990	5,319
	====================================	====================================	====================================	====================================	====================================	====================================

 

 

*Comparatives have been restated to combine Other reserve (being adjustments to equity in respect of share based payments) with retained earnings.

1.         General information

 

BrainJuicer Group PLC ("the Company"), a United Kingdom resident, and its subsidiaries (together "the Group") provide on-line market research services.  The Company's shares are listed on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange ("AIM").  The address of the Company's registered office is 1 Cavendish Place, London, W1G 0QF.

 

This condensed consolidated annual financial information was approved by the board of directors for issue on 24 March 2011.

 

2.         Basis of preparation

 

The financial information set out in this report does not constitute the Company's statutory accounts for the years ended 31 December 2010 or 2009 but is derived from those accounts.  Statutory accounts for 2009 have been delivered to the registrar of companies, and those for 2010 will be delivered in due course.  The auditors have reported on those accounts; their reports were (i) unqualified, (ii) did not include reference to any matters to which the auditors drew attention by way of emphasis without qualifying their report and (iii) did not contain a statement under section 498 (2) or (3) of the Companies Act 2006.

 

3.         Principal accounting policies

 

Except as stated below, the principal accounting policies adopted are consistent with those of the annual financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2009, as described in those annual financial statements.

 

The following new standards and amendments to standards are mandatory for the first time for the financial year beginning 1 January 2010.

 

IFRS 3 (revised) 'Business combinations' and consequential amendments to IAS 27, 'Consolidated and separate financial statements', IAS 28 'Investments in associates', and IAS 31, 'Interests in joint ventures', are effective prospectively to business combinations for which the acquisition date is on or after the beginning of the first annual reporting period beginning on or after 1 July 2009.

 

The revised standard continues to apply the acquisition method to business combinations but with some significant changes compared with IFRS 3. For example, all payments to purchase a business are recorded at fair value at the acquisition date, with contingent payments classified as financial liabilities subsequently re-measured through the income statement. There is a choice on an acquisition-by-acquisition basis to measure the non-controlling interest's proportionate share of the acquiree's net assets. All acquisition costs are expensed.

 

As the Group has adopted IFRS 3 (revised), it is required to adopt IAS 27 (revised), 'consolidated and separate financial statements', at the same time. IAS 27 (revised) requires the effects of all transactions with non-controlling interests to be recorded in equity if there is no change in control and these transactions will no longer result in adjustments to goodwill. The standard also specifies the accounting when control is lost. Any remaining interest in the entity is re-measured to fair value and a gain or loss is recognised in profit or loss. There has been no impact of IAS 27 (revised) on the current period. There have been no transactions whereby an interest in an entity is retained after the loss of control of that entity, there have been no transactions with non-controlling interests.

 

4.         Segment information

 

The CEO reviews the Group's internal reports in order to assess performance and allocate resources. Management has determined the operating segments based upon these reports. The CEO considers the business from both a geographic and product perspective. From a product perspective, management assesses the performance of its 'Juicy' and 'Twist' products.

 

The CEO assesses the performance of the operating segments based on operating profit before allocation of central overheads.  Interest income is not included in the result for each operating segment that is reviewed by the CEO.

 

	2010		2009
	Revenue from external customers	Operating Profit/(loss)	Revenue from external customers	Operating Profit/(loss)
	£'000	£'000	£'000	£'000
United Kingdom	7,858	4,065	5,525	2,527
North America	4,143	1,589	2,576	859
Netherlands	2,007	686	2,290	958
Switzerland	1,411	710	872	391
Germany	778	255	551	178
China	82	(45)	-	-
Brazil	81	(72)	-	-
	16,360	7,188	11,814	4,913
Juicy*	8,845	54%	6,776	57%
Twist	7,515	46%	5,038	43%
	16,360		11,814

Juicy products are BrainJuicer's new methodologies that challenge traditional approaches.  Twist products are industry standard quantitative research methods but with BrainJuicer's twist of adding qualitative diagnostics.

 

*One of our products was reclassified from Juicy to Twist at the beginning of the reporting period.  Revenue from this product amounted to £746,000 (2009: £394,000) for the year.  The comparatives have been restated to take account of this reclassification.

A reconciliation of total operating profit for reportable segments to total profit before income tax is provided below:

	2010		2009
	£'000		£'000
Operating profit for reportable segments	7,188		4,913
Central overheads	(4,972)		(3,268)
Operating profit	2,216		1,645
Finance income	1		13
Profit before income tax	2,217		1,658

Revenues are attributed to geographical areas based upon the location in which the sale originated.

 

4.         Segment information (continued)

IFRS 8 has been amended so that a measure of segment assets is only required to be disclosed if the measure is regularly provided to the chief operating decision maker.  The amendment is effective for periods beginning on or after 1 January 2010. 

Consolidated cash, trade receivable, property, plant and equipment and intangible asset balances are regularly provided to the chief operating decision-maker but segment assets and segment liabilities are not provided.

The entity is domiciled in the UK.  The result of its revenue from external customers in the UK is £7,858,000 (2009: £5,525,000), and the total of revenue from external customers from other countries is £8,502,000 (2009: £6,289,000).

The total of non-current assets other than financial instruments and deferred tax assets located in the UK is £1,837,000 (2009: £939,000), and the total of these non-current assets located in other countries is £40,000 (2009: £35,000).

Revenues of £1,736,000 (2009: £1,909,000) are derived from a single external customer.  £830,000 (2009: £1,202,000) of these revenues are attributable to the UK operating segment with £574,000 (2009: £461,000), £307,000 (2009: £246,000) and £25,000 (2009: £Nil) attributable to the Netherlands, North American and German segments respectively.

 

5.         Property, plant and equipment

 

For the year ended 31 December 2010

	Furniture, fittings and equipment	Computer hardware	Total
	£'000s	£'000s	£'000s
At 1 January 2010
Cost	118	254	372
Accumulated depreciation	(69)	(191)	(260)
	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------
Net book amount	49	63	112
	==================================	==================================	==================================
Year ended 31 December 2010
Opening net book amount	49	63	112
Additions	160	113	273
Depreciation charge for the year	(59)	(68)	(127)
Foreign exchange	-	1	1
	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------
Closing net book amount	150	109	259
	==================================	==================================	==================================
At 31 December 2010
Cost	278	368	646
Accumulated depreciation	(128)	(259)	(387)
	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------
Net book amount	150	109	259
	==================================	==================================	==================================

 

For the year ended 31 December 2009

 

	Furniture, fittings and equipment	Computer hardware	Total
	£'000s	£'000s	£'000s
At 1 January 2009
Cost	107	201	308
Accumulated depreciation	(43)	(108)	(151)
	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------
Net book amount	64	93	157
	==================================	==================================	==================================
Year ended 31 December 2009
Opening net book amount	64	93	157
Additions	13	57	70
Depreciation charge for the year	(26)	(87)	(113)
Foreign exchange	(2)	-	(2)
	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------
Closing net book amount	49	63	112
	==================================	==================================	==================================
At 31 December 2009
Cost	118	254	372
Accumulated depreciation	(69)	(191)	(260)
	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------
Net book amount	49	63	112
	==================================	==================================	==================================

 

6.         Intangible assets

 

	Goodwill	Software licenses	Software	Software develop-ment in progress	Total
	£'000	£'000	£'000	£'000	£'000
At 1 January 2010
Cost	-	198	68	832	1,098
Accumulated amortisation	-	(168)	(68)	-	(236)
	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------
Net book amount	-	30	-	832	862
	==================================	==================================	==================================	==================================	==================================
Year ended 31 December 2010
Opening net book amount	-	30	-	832	862
Additions	6	10	-	772	788
Amortisation charge for the year	-	(27)	-	-	(27)
	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------
Closing net book amount	6	13	-	1,604	1,623
	==================================	==================================	==================================	==================================	==================================
At 31 December 2010
Cost	6	208	68	1,604	1,886
Accumulated depreciation	-	(195)	(68)	-	(263)
	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	-------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------
Net book amount	6	13	-	1,604	1,623
	==================================	==================================	==================================	==================================	==================================

During the year the Group invested £772,000 in developing the Group's software platform for delivering its research.  At the balance sheet date the platform was not ready for use and so no amortisation was charged for the year.  An impairment review was carried out during the year and no impairment adjustments were necessary.

 

	Goodwill	Software licenses	Software	Software develop-ment in progress	Total
	£'000	£'000	£'000	£'000	£'000
At 1 January 2009
Cost	-	91	68	516	675
Accumulated amortisation	-	(42)	(8)	-	(50)
	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------
Net book amount	-	49	60	516	625
	==================================	==================================	==================================	==================================	==================================
Year ended 31 December 2009
Opening net book amount	-	49	60	516	625
Additions	-	38	3	316	357
Amortisation charge for the year	-	(56)	(63)	-	(119)
Foreign exchange	-	(1)	-	-	(1)
	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	-------------------------------	-------------------------------	----------------------------------
Closing net book amount	-	30	-	832	862
	==================================	==================================	==================================	==================================	==================================
At 31 December 2009
Cost	-	198	68	832	1,098
Accumulated amortisation	-	(168)	(68)	-	(236)
	----------------------------------	----------------------------------	-------------------------------	----------------------------------	----------------------------------
Net book amount	-	30	-	832	862
	==================================	==================================	==================================	==================================	==================================

 

 

7.         Financial assets - available for sale investments

 

In 2008 the Group acquired an interest of 3.64% in Slater Marketing Group Pty Limited, an unlisted company incorporated in Australia, for cash consideration of £40,000 plus transaction costs of £50,000.  During 2009 the Group acquired a further interest of 3.64% for cash consideration of £43,000.

 

Under the terms of the share purchase agreement, cash consideration of AUD$1,040,000 (£682,000) and a variable number of ordinary shares to the value of AUD$1,000,000 become payable on or before 31 December 2012 subject to certain performance conditions being met by Slater Marketing Group Pty Limited. On the last working day of February, May, August and November in each of 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, the Group has the option to acquire Slater Marketing Group Pty Limited whether or not the performance conditions have been satisfied.  These conditions had not been met at the balance sheet date.

 

The investment has been classified as an available for sale financial asset and measured at cost.

 

Investments in equity instruments that do not have a quoted market price in an active market and whose fair value cannot be reliably measured, and derivatives that are linked to (and must be settled by delivery of such) unquoted equity instruments, are measured at cost.

 

There is no active market for the shares of Slater Marketing Group Pty Limited and given the range of possible outcomes, no reliable method of valuation. The investment and associated derivatives in respect of the share purchase agreement for the acquisition of Slater Marketing Group Pty Limited have been recorded at a cost of £133,000 (2009: £133,000) and £nil (2009: £nil) respectively. In the opinion of the directors no reliable fair value information can be disclosed for these financial instruments.

 

8.         Income tax expense

	2010	2009
	£'000	£'000
Current tax	789	498
Deferred tax	(52)	(25)
	-----------------------------------	-----------------------------------
	737	473
	===============	===============

 

Income tax expense for the year differs from the standard rate of taxation as follows:

 

	------------------------------------	------------------------------------
Profit on ordinary activities before taxation	2,217	1,658
	===============	====================================
Profit on ordinary activities multiplied by standard rate of tax of 28% (2009: 28%)	621	464
Difference between tax rates applied to Group's subsidiaries	24	4
Expenses not deductible for tax purposes	127	41
Other temporary differences	(47)	(24)
Adjustment to current tax in respect of prior years	19	(12)
Credit on exercise of share options taken to income statement	(7)	-
	------------------------------------	------------------------------------
Total tax	737	473
	===============	====================================

 

9.         Earnings per share

              (a) Basic

 

Basic earnings per share are calculated by dividing the profit attributable to equity holders of the Company by the weighted average number of ordinary shares in issue during the year.

 

	2010	2009
	£'000	£'000
Profit attributable to equity holders of the Company	1,480	1,185
Weighted average number of ordinary shares in issue	12,604,214	12,923,663
	------------------------------------	------------------------------------
Basic earnings per share	11.7	9.2p
	===============	===============

             

              (b) Diluted

 

Diluted earnings per share is calculated by adjusting the weighted average number of shares outstanding to assume conversion of all dilutive potential ordinary shares. For share options, a calculation is made in order to determine the number of shares that could have been acquired at fair value (determined as the average annual market share price of the Company's shares) based on the monetary value of the subscription rights attached to outstanding share options. The number of shares calculated in this way is compared with the number of shares that would have been issued assuming the exercise of the share options.

 

	2010	2009
	£'000	£'000
Profit attributable to equity holders of the Company and profit used to determine diluted earnings per share	1,480	1,185
	------------------------------------	------------------------------------
Weighted average number of ordinary shares in issue	12,604,214	12,923,663
Share options	496,991	183,422
	------------------------------------	------------------------------------
Weighted average number of ordinary shares for diluted earnings per share	13,101,205	13,107,085
Diluted earnings per share	11.3p	9.0p
	===============	===============

 

10.        Dividends per share

	2010	2009
	£'000	£'000
Dividends paid on Ordinary Shares
Interim, 0.6p per share (2009: 0.6p per share)	78	77
	----------------------------------	----------------------------------
	78	77
Final dividend relating to 2009, 1.3p per share (2009: 1p per share)	169	130
	==================================	==================================
Total ordinary dividends paid in the year	247	207
	==================================	==================================

 

A dividend in respect of the year ended 31 December 2010 of 1.8p per share, is to be proposed at the AGM. These financial statements do not reflect this dividend payable.