Iress’ transformation strategy bears fruit in 1H24
Disciplined cost management on its transformation strategy has helped Iress to report an adjusted EBITDA of $67 million in the first half of 2024.
The firm previously estimated its adjusted EBITDA would be between $65 and 67 million, up from $44 million in the first half of 2023, which was attributed to the firm undergoing a transformation strategy.
This included Iress’ completed sale of its managed funds administration business to SS&C Technologies for $52 million in October 2023 and the sale of its platform business to OneVue in April 2024.
Since the end of the first half, it has also sold its UK mortgages business for $167 million, so it has upgraded its FY24 adjusted EBITDA guidance from $122–132 million to $126–132 million post asset sales.
It also flagged “strong improvements” in its UK business, thanks to a strengthened leadership team led by Harry Mitchell, which led to an 11 per cent rise in revenue. Mitchell was appointed in October 2023 to take on responsibility for the UK as well as the role as group executive for wealth management.
In its APAC wealth division, the business said it has implemented new pricing frameworks, reduced operating expenditure, enhanced its delivery model and reinvested back into core products. This led revenue in the APAC wealth division to rise by 3 per cent to $66.6 million and adjusted EBITDA to sit at $25.2 million.
Overall revenue was $309 million, down slightly from $311 million in the first half of 2023.
Dividends have been reinstated with a full-year dividend to be paid in March 2025.
The first half of the calendar year also saw the technology firm busy in strengthening its security settings after suffering an unauthorised access of its user space on GitHub earlier in May. GitHub is a third-party code repository platform which manages software code before it goes live, but no client information is stored on the platform.
At the time, Iress said there was no evidence that client data and Iress’ production or client software had been compromised as a result of the issue. However, a later investigation of the cyber breach found it affected its OneVue production environment which contained client data. Iress completed its internal investigation in early July.
“The investigation has found no evidence of unauthorised access to Iress’ production environment, software or client data other than a limited portion of Iress’ OneVue production environment.”
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Laura Dew
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