GRC International Group PLC COVID-19 Response (4933I)
02 April 2020 - 5:00PM
UK Regulatory
TIDMGRC
RNS Number : 4933I
GRC International Group PLC
02 April 2020
GRC International Group PLC ("GRC" or the "Group") - COVID-19
Response
Operations
-- Business Continuity: GRC has executed its UK business
continuity plan in response to the UK Government's instruction that
where possible and as far they are able to, all employees should
work from home. The Company is able to confirm that by 25 March all
our staff across the Group in the UK, USA and EU were successfully
working from home and carrying out business as usual.
Encouragingly, to date this approach has meant that the Group has
suffered minimal disruption as a result of staff having to
self-isolate.
-- Customer Focus: During March, we successfully shifted almost
all of our client service delivery across our continuity, security
and privacy compliance services worldwide, online. With very minor
exceptions, we are now able to meet all our client's delivery needs
- including classroom training, consultancy, audit, testing and
legal compliance services, on a remote basis to clients across the
world.
-- Customer Demand: After a strong start to March, demand
dropped slightly during the middle period of the month while
clients focused on the transition to remote working.
We have had a strong finish to the period. In our training
business, there have been more paying delegates attend (now all
online) courses this March than in any month since June 2018, at
the tail end of the GDPR peak. Despite the ongoing disruption
COVID-19 has imposed on our clients, we were successful in
delivering nearly 100% of our pre-contracted work in all our
businesses.
-- Privacy Management: While executing our continuity plan and
completing our pivot to comprehensive online service delivery, we
were also successfully audited against ISO/IEC 27701, the new
privacy management extension to ISO/IEC 27001. It is another
standard for which we provide training and implementation
services.
-- Product Innovation and Market Agility: A key strength of the
Group, in the last fortnight, we launched 10 new products,
specifically tailored for the needs of clients at this challenging
time. These include policy document packs for remote workers and
for business continuity, as well as security testing, anti-phishing
training, and online staff awareness training for remote workers -
which is available internationally, deployable on desktop as well
as mobile devices, on a 2-week free trial basis from 2 April.
Market
-- In the current highly volatile climate, it is the Board's
current view that security, continuity and privacy compliance
projects will continue to be critical for clients in all those
sectors that have ongoing business operations.
While some clients have understandably de-prioritised security
and compliance projects while they deal with their more pressing
continuity challenges, other clients recognise the level of risk in
the changing environment and are prioritising security, continuity
and compliance, with the Company just securing two substantial
contracts, with an aggregate GBP255k revenue in FY21 to 31 March
2021.
Finances
-- The Group successfully recapitalised the Company in February,
raising approximately GBP3.5 million (net of expenses), resolving
the cash element of the deferred consideration (GBP1.6m) now paid
to the vendors of DQM and repaying a bank borrowing facility
(GBP0.5m). The remainder of the funds raised provided additional
working capital for the Group to strengthen the overall balance
sheet position.
-- Cost management is already very tight. We are continuing to
take action to reduce costs and preserve cash and, where possible,
will take advantage of emerging Government support schemes in all
of the geographies in which we operate. We have made savings in
marketing and in property and training venue costs and continue to
rationalise IT infrastructure, having extended the hiring freeze
and are continuing to see payroll costs reduce.
In particular, early progress on the integration of DQM with the
rest of the GRC group has enabled one of the founder directors to
take early retirement, and the other to reduce workload by 60%; and
these savings (c. GBP0.2m annualised) are effective from 1
April.
Next Update
The Board expects to update the market on trading for the year
to 31 March 2020 around the beginning of May 2020 and will provide
a further CV19 update if necessary at that time.
Enquiries
GRC International Group plc www.grci.group
Alan Calder (CEO) 033 3800 7000
Chris Hartshorne (Finance Director)
Grant Thornton UK LLP (Nomad)
Philip Secrett / Jen Clarke / Ben Roberts
/ Seamus Fricker 020 7383 5100
Dowgate Capital Limited (Broker)
James Serjeant 020 3903 7717
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END
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