FD Technologies : Annual Report and Accounts 2023

Delivering on strategy

Annual Report 2023

Delivering on strategy

This has been a year of marked acceleration across the business, both in the financial performance of KX and First Derivative and the execution of strategy.

The decisions taken by the Board and executed by senior management in recent years have positioned KX as the high-performance engine for real-time analytics, just as a range of industries are beginning to understand the value they can generate from these insights.

Donna Troy

Chair

Our purpose

FD Technologies solves business-critical problems to unlock business value.

Who we are

We are a group of data and AI-driven businesses that unlock the value of insight, hindsight and foresight to drive organisations forward.

What we do

We give every business the ability to realise the true value of their data to achieve their potential.

Strategic report

Highlights

Financial highlights

Revenue				Adjusted EBITDA
£296.0m				£34.8m
2023		£296.0m		2023	£34.8m
2022	£263.5m			2022	£31.0m
2021	£237.9m			2021		£40.5m

Business unit KPIs

KX growth in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR):

39%

First Derivative revenue growth:	MRP revenue decline:
18%	19%

Operational highlights

• KX exceeded its targets with annual recurring revenue (ARR) up
  39% to £65.3m (FY22: £47.0m) and net revenue retention of 119%
  (FY22: 106%); incremental annual contract value (ACV) increased
  by 93% to £18.7m (FY22: £9.7m)
• Launched the industry's first Data Timehouse, positioning KX as the engine for real-time analytics in the cloud and delivering up to 100x the performance at 1/10th of the cost of alternative solutions*
• Significant progress with a range of existing and potential partners, including the general availability of kdb Insights Enterprise on Microsoft

Azure and an agreement to partner with AWS

• Continued our drive to accelerate time to value for customers, as well as making our technology easier to adopt and use; our progress is reflected in continued growth in industry, which accounted for more than 30% of ACV

• Momentum set to continue in the current year, benefiting from growing demand for real-time analytics as the foundation for AI-driven business innovation, the strengthening of KX leadership and growing market recognition for the return on investment that KX delivers
• First Derivative delivered revenue growth of 18%, also ahead of target, benefiting from multi-year strategic growth drivers, particularly relating to regulatory compliance and digital transformation
• Weaker demand environment continued at MRP, with revenue down by 19%; cost base aligned to protect EBITDA in the current year

• From independent benchmarking exercises and customer feedback.

In this report

Strategic report

1. Highlights
2. Business overview

1. Chair's review

1. Business model

1. Strategy
2. Key performance indicators

10 Engaging and working with our stakeholders

12 Business review

14 Business unit review: KX

17 Business unit review: First Derivative

1. Business unit review: MRP
2. Financial review

25	Principal risks and uncertainties	Financial statements
30	Corporate responsibility	62	Independent auditor's report
	and sustainability	70	Consolidated statement of
Corporate governance
	comprehensive income
40	Board of Directors	72	Consolidated balance sheet
73	Company balance sheet
42	Chair's governance statement
74	Consolidated statement of changes in equity
44	Governance framework
76	Company statement of changes in equity
46	Report of the Audit and Risk Committee
78	Consolidated cash flow statement
49	Report of the Nomination and
	ESG Committee	79	Company cash flow statement
52	Report of the Remuneration and	80	Notes
	Talent Committee	126	Global directory
58	Directors' report
IBC Directors and advisers
60	Statement of Directors' responsibilities

FD Technologies plc Annual Report 2023 |1

Strategic report

Business overview

Delivering impact

We are a group of data and AI-driven businesses that unlock the value of insight, hindsight and foresight to drive organisations forward.

KX

Software to accelerate AI-driven innovation  

FY23 revenue:	ARR growth:
£80m	39%

KX's mission is to accelerate the speed of AI-driven business innovation, enabling customers to transform into real-time, intelligent enterprises. Built for the most demanding data environments, at the intersection of big and fast temporal data, its Data Timehouse platform is trusted by the world's top investment banks and hedge funds and leading companies in the life and health sciences, semiconductor, telecommunications, and manufacturing industries.

At the heart of its technology is the kdb+ time-series database and real-time analytics engine, independently benchmarked as the fastest on the market. It can process and analyse time-series and historical data at unmatched speed and scale, empowering developers, data scientists, and data engineers to build high-performancedata-driven applications and turbo-charge their favourite analytics and AI tools in the cloud, on-premise, or at the edge.

Ultimately, its technology enables the discovery of richer, actionable insights for faster decision making which drives competitive advantage and transformative growth for customers.

  See page 14

First Derivative

First Derivative - Consulting services which drive digital transformation in financial services and capital markets

FY23 revenue:	Revenue growth:
£174m	18%

First Derivative is a specialist consulting firm operating in areas where expert knowledge is critical to success, whether it's in the realm of business, technical, or both. With deep vertical expertise in capital markets, banking operations and asset servicing - it has one of the largest fully dedicated capital markets consulting teams in the world - First Derivative's commitment to training and continuous improvement is the bedrock of its reputation of being able to solve the toughest of operational, data and technology challenges.

Offering one of the world's largest dedicated capital markets consulting teams, First Derivative operates from centres of excellence in the UK, Ireland, Canada, the US and mainland Europe.

  See page 17

2  | FD Technologies plc Annual Report 2023

Our global reach for scale and growth*

3935P+6119P+65P+817P+9
Americas	UK			EMEA						Asia Pacific
39%	35%	19%	7%
14	3,000	4
locations		people	continents

• Based on split of revenue.

Technology-enabled services

for enterprise demand generation

FY23 revenue:	Revenue decline:
£41m	19%

MRP

Servicing more than 1,000 clients across the world, MRP focuses on the needs and challenges of enterprise sales and marketing teams. MRP Prelytix®, the only enterprise-class,account-based marketing (ABM) platform, is purpose-built to simplify the complexity of clients' operating environments, enabling account-based programmes that are coordinated with existing marketing programmes, across all global marketing initiatives. Ultimately MRP delivers growth to its customers through the highest quality, most innovative products and services in the ABM space.

  See page 19

FD Technologies plc Annual Report 2023 |3