Half Year 2022 Aquis Exchange PLC Earnings Presentation (Investor) Sep 26, 2022 (Thomson StreetEvents) -- Edited Transcript of Aquis Exchange PLC earnings conference call or presentation Thursday, September 22, 2022 at 1:30:00pm GMT TEXT version of Transcript ================================================================================ Corporate Participants ================================================================================ * Alasdair Frederick Seton Haynes Aquis Exchange PLC - Founder, CEO & Director * Richard Fisher Aquis Exchange PLC - CFO & Director ================================================================================ Presentation -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [1] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Good afternoon. And welcome to the Aquis Exchange plc Interim Results Investor Presentation. (Operator Instructions) Before we begin, I'd like to say the following poll. I'd now like to hand over to Alasdair Haynes, CEO. Good afternoon, sir. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alasdair Frederick Seton Haynes, Aquis Exchange PLC - Founder, CEO & Director [2] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Good afternoon. Thank you very much indeed, and a very warm welcome to all of you where we're going to talk about the results for the period ended the 30th of June 2022 for Aquis Exchange. I'm Alasdair Haynes, the Founder and CEO, and I'm here joined with Richard Fisher, who is the Chief Financial Officer of the company. For those of you who are not so familiar, I thought the first slide we show is just an outline of what we do as a business. We are one company, Aquis Exchange plc, and we operate 3 business divisions. The original business we started, which was the Aquis Exchange. This is the business where we have MTFs, both in Europe, in Paris and in London and we trade here the top 2,000 stocks, large caps, mid-caps, across Europe. Here, we have a subscription model unique, the only exchange in the world that operates a subscription model based on message traffic and also, we have a rule that prohibits proprietary traders from crossing the spread. What does that really mean? It means that we have a very different type of flow on our platform. Proprietary traders -- certain proprietary trading can actually influence price at effect price and we think that we know that we have a low toxicity market, it means that people trading on us do not experience the same type of impact costs as you would do on other exchanges. We have Aquis Stock Exchange. That's the primary market. It's the business we bought the license for 2 and a bit years ago. We'll go into further details about that. I'm really optimistic about what the future is for primary markets in the U.K. and how we can change them. And then the third business line is we have Aquis Technologies. We actually have 4 revenue streams because, obviously, we have data and we get data from the Aquis Stock Exchange and the Aquis Exchange, and we sell that through data vendors. And underneath all of those business divisions, we have multiple products and services. And the one we'll talk most about today is the one where in March this year, we concluded on a deal with UBS MTF to buy the business assets. So let's go straight away to the results. And I'm really pleased with the performance of the company and what must be seen incredibly difficult times. We had a 21% increase in net revenue despite these conditions. We have diversified the business quite considerably, and we'll talk about that over this presentation. In fact, all 3 divisions are now profitable. And I know this is the first time that Aquis Stock Exchange has actually reached profitability. We see no reason now why the rest of the year, we won't be profitable and actually going forward, it will maintain its profitability. The AMP, which is this business, the Aquis Matching Pool, which is the business that we bought off UBS as its MTF we've successfully integrated that into our own technology stack. That was really key for us to do because what it meant is that taking that technology away from UBS means we can use our latest technology. We can now trade their customers can now use this product, not just in the U.K. but right the way across Europe. And I'm delighted to say that all their clients have actually now transferred over to us. We've seen very significant growth in the Aquis Technologies, part of the diversification. We'll go into that in a minute, and an increase also in our data revenue lines. The Aquis Stock Exchange, as I said, is now profitable, but it did 12 listings in the first half of 2022. And I'm delighted to say that we have 16 listings actually year-to-date. We've raised GBP 41 million out of -- for these companies and set primary and secondary companies on the market this year. That's actually slightly more listings than AIM has done, and I'm delighted that people are starting to see the public markets as a place for the public to be able to trade in and also that there is a use of scale up capital from the public, allowing them to invest in these incredible, exciting growth businesses. We've an encouraging start to H2 '22. So let's look at the material progress achieved on the strategic goals. So I talked about 21% increase in net revenue. The exchange grew 10%, the licensing by 75%. The issuer business, that's the primary market by 24% and data by 29%. But I want to look a little bit about this licensing business. We have specifically and deliberately invested over the last year in technology. Why? Because we have created a cloud-based technology for start-up and exchanges which we've been able to sell, and we saw this opportunity a year ago. We've actually signed 3 contracts, 1 at the end of last year, 1 during the period and 1 actually at the end of the period, just a few months ago or a couple of months ago. Now what is so important about that is that these are signed contracts, which are guaranteed revenue to us. But as Richard will explain in a minute, the accounting practices means we can take none of that revenue until we actually delivered the product to the customer. And that is why we remain very confident about our expectations for the second half of this year and also confident in our ability to significantly grow this technology business because the sales pipeline for this business remains incredibly strong. So we think the cutting-edge technology that we've developed, we can monetize. In the process of doing that, we've actually increased our costs. And you will see that our costs have gone up by 30% because we've hired more people. And we've had to hire more people to actually take advantage. We think we're giving shareholder value by speeding up the process by able to capture this opportunity at an earlier stage. We've actually hired 10 people this year over the 5 people we hired last year. We've increased the members on the Aquis Exchange by 3 to 42 and as I said before, we've done IPOs on the Aquis Stock Exchange. We've also, Richard, who came in last year as Director of Finance, is appointed as Chief Financial Officer. Jonathan Clelland, who some of you will remember, is still with the group. He is our Chief Executive now sitting in the Paris office, running the French subsidiary and is also -- and remains a Chief Operating Officer and remains on the Board of the company. But as a number of our Board members have been board members since the start inception of this business 9, 10 years ago, we've started to extend the Board as they retire. And we've hired Dr. Ruth Wandhöfer and Fields Wicker-Miurin as Board members, and I'm delighted to have them on board. If you read their CVs, you'll be incredibly impressed. Well, I'm going to pass over now to Richard to go through the numbers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Richard Fisher, Aquis Exchange PLC - CFO & Director [3] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Great. Thank you, Alasdair. And good afternoon, everyone. Yes, I'll start with the key highlight. That's the 21% increase in net revenue from GBP 6.9 million to GBP 8.3 million period-on-period. And if I sort of walked down to the individual divisions. So exchange revenue is up from GBP 4.9 million to GBP 5.4 million. And I would just note that in that GBP 5.4 million we only have part recognition of the price increases that were put through in April this year. So we'd only have 2 months of that revenue. And also for AMP, that was only concluded towards the latter half of the period. So we don't see a full period impact of that. If I look at the licensing and other revenue, that's up 75%, GBP 0.4 million (inaudible) 3 signed contracts. So as we'll talk about later, there is an accounting requirement for when that revenue can be recognized. But at the moment, we are forecasting a recognition of that revenue half of this year. So then step down through data and issuer revenues. Those are both up 29% and 24%, respectively. If we then look at the expense line, as Alasdair alluded to earlier, that's up GBP 5.3 million (sic) [GBP 8.3 million] to GBP 6.9 million. The 30% increase, which primarily reflects our investment in our capability for what we're able to deliver in the technology and sales space. So I'll pick up later on some of the headcount changes we've seen. But this is very much an investment to allow us to deliver the growth potential that we've identified versus that revenue increases. We do see a slight compression of EBITDA from GBP 1.6 million to GBP 1.4 million and PBT from GBP 1 million to GBP 0.7 million period-on-period. So what we like to primarily do to the 2 factors identified to the timing of the cost increases and also the recognition timing of that licensing revenue. So if we now move to the next slide, so we've got 3 charts on this page. The one on the left-hand side, and this is how we are demonstrating our we believe that we'll be in line with expectations for the full year. The line on the right-hand side is showing what is an average of our full year expectation across our market expectations. The middle chart is actually something that Alasdair alluded to and is increasingly important to this group, and it's the diversification of the revenue that we're generating. So not just are we generating substantial revenues from exchange, but it's the growing value we're deriving from our tech business, data and issuance. So those are increasingly becoming material components of our overall revenue. The third chart on the right-hand side is one that I would have spoken to those of you who joined last period, and it's looking at the nature of the revenue that we have. And this is around how much of that revenue that we earn is on a recurring basis. And currently for this period, 89% is on that recurring basis. And this, for me, is one of the beauties of the Aquis model. This really does mean that each period we are building off an established revenue base. So not starting from scratch each period, we really are able to (technical difficulty) Lastly sort of impacted by the fact in this period, we've now technology revenue recognized from new contracts. So normally, we would see that 89% be a lower percentage last year, that was at about 70%. But the messaging around how we perceive those contracts, I believe, is key. And so when you look at this pie chart, (technical difficulty) So whilst it might not be recurring on a monthly basis, this would continue to be recurring over a longer term. Now then step to the next slide. This is just looking at our cash generation in the period. And this is one of the strengths of the Aquis model is that we are strongly cash generative at the moment. So throwing off free cash flow of just over GBP 1 million in the sort of period. But for me, it's actually what have we been able to do with that investment, I think with that cash generation. And it's GBP 755,000 of that. We've invested either through capitalizing our internal development costs or through external technology and development costs. And this really is how do we seek to maintain and develop our technological edge that is going to allow us to compete and grow forward. I then turn to the next slide, and this is looking at some of the investments that we've made in the period and talking to the point of why our costs have increased period-on-period. So the first point is around the headcount increase. And as Alasdair pointed out, last year, headcount grew just from 5 from 52 to 57. But this year, we've really sort of driven our growth in our technological development and our business development side. So head count has increased by 10 for the year-to-date and for us, this has been a planned investment to allow us to really deliver against the opportunity set we especially identified in that technology license space. So with the 3 contracts we've identified and as Alasdair pointed one was signed at the end of last year, but 2 have been signed this year, 1 prior to the half year and 1 after. And those contract developments have really been driven by what we're able to develop in the technology space over this period. I'd also point to a second aspect around our costs. And as Alasdair said, we acquired the UBS MTF in the period. And so we do have transition costs associated with that. When we picked -- when we acquired the assets of the UBS MTF, at first -- for the first 6 months, we went live on a UBS technology stack. I'm pleased to announce that we have earlier this week, completed the process of now moving all clients onto the Aquis technology stack. And so no further costs that will be associated with that payment to UBS and also incidental to the deal, there have been sort of costs -- incremental costs of about GBP 0.1 million relating to legal fees, et cetera. And whilst AMP has been sort of profit accretive from day one, obviously, with the succession of those costs, it now becomes substantially profit generative. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alasdair Frederick Seton Haynes, Aquis Exchange PLC - Founder, CEO & Director [4] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let's have a look at the divisional review. So let's look at Aquis Exchange. Now when we last spoke, we talked really about the decline in market share that we've seen earlier this year. And we cited 3 reasons as to why that has happened. The first being high volatility, and we absolutely admit that during high volatility given the rule that actually prohibits the proprietary traders from aggressively trading on our platform. That is something that we wanted to see to get a better marketplace, a more transparent and a more less toxic marketplace. So by cutting that out, we found that in times of high volatility, crop traders trade more our market share declines. And we're very clear on that and we can identify that. The second was that we realized that we didn't have an entire suite of product for our customers. We had the lit book. We had the market at close, but we didn't have a dark pool, and it was clearly missing so we bought UBS MTF assets, and we integrated that into our business. And the third reason was -- the third reason was one liquidity provider had actually declined quite significantly in the amount of liquidity provision. So in reverse order, what did we do over the last 6 months. I'm absolutely delighted to say that we now have 9 liquidity providers, and we used to have 5. So we increased the liquidity provision by 4 more players joining our marketplace that's pretty encouraging because what it means is at an early stage, they test in the market. And as they are here longer and longer, we expect to see liquidity actually increased so we believe that problem has now passed, and in fact, we're back on the march upwards. The second was obviously the dark pool. Well, that, as Richard said, is now fully integrated on our own technology. Every member has now crossed (technical difficulty) over now can trade all over Europe. And UBS when they operated it pre-Brexit this market had around about 2% market share. We can see no reason why over a period of time, we will not get back to at least that at 2% market share trade ark. So there's an opportunity only is it price good for market share. It's also good for revenue because the AMP, the Aquis Matching Pool is an additional cost to the subscription. In fact, we charge 0.1 basis points either side. Volatility, unfortunately, is not something that we can control. It is slightly down on Q1. I think volatility may well remain high for the rest of this year and into next year. And that will obviously have a slight drag on our business. But I think, as I will show you in a second, the decline as such in market share is over. And actually, we started to see an increase and continual increase in market share. We have not changed absolutely not changed our belief that we can attain greater than 10% market share. And I think we will do that by the fact that we have the full suite of products now and that we are looking at introducing new order types into the system over the coming months. I think one of the things that we need to point out is driving the member usage towards the top tiers. Now as you remember before, we have 9 members now in the top 3 tiers, 24 members in the other 5 tiers. And what we really have to do here is where we get into Tier 3, 4 and 5. We need to be moving those members further up. I don't think we've made enough progress yet this year. I think the conditions have made it quite hard in order for us to do that, but it is one of our key focuses by having a quant team to analyze and look at not only our market but looking at everybody else's market and making quite certain that we have the right data shown to the right people. So in other words, we not only want to show data to our customers, the banks and brokers, but also to their customers' customer to make absolutely certain that they are getting the true benefit of a low toxicity environment. So certainly, work has been done here, but more work still to be done. You'll see on the chart on the left on this slide that you can see the turnaround in market share, and we believe it won't go in a straight line, but we do believe that, that march will continue upwards towards and above the 10%. On the right-hand side, you'll see 2 charts. This is the market at close. The top of the 2 small chart shows what the total value in Europe is traded at the close. And it's around about 22% to 23%. That is a very significant amount of trading at the end of the day, almost 1/4 of all business is conducted at the close. So it is very important as exchanges, national exchanges, the incumbents have had the effective monopoly that, that monopoly is broken. Now we introduced the MaC, the market at close order type a couple of years ago. And I fully admit that it wasn't as successful as I'd hoped it to be because this is a product that doesn't actually help the customer get a better price because the price is always guaranteed to be the closing price of the national market. But it can save them substantial sums of money. This message, I think, eventually, particularly in times of difficulty, where people are really looking at cost savings has now started to happen. And I'm delighted to see that a third firm has now entered the MaC and I think you will find more of these firms by the end of the year and early next year, getting the message and starting to join. We certainly have a good sales pipeline for the first time in a while for the MaC product. The Aquis Matching Pool, I've mentioned about how important it is. And I think I'm not certain how much time you want to spend on this slide, but certainly, we'll take further questions on it. I think the key here is back to that point that when UBS was operating in this, it was around EUR 300 million a day. I think we've substantially increased that because we're offering a wider product here. It is now trading in 16 European markets which I think is something that hasn't happened by them in the past because of Brexit, and this is something that all the clients that we've spoken to are very excited about being able to use this product in a wider way. So this is something which we do see as a big opportunity moving forward. Richard, do you want to talk a bit about the Technologies? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Richard Fisher, Aquis Exchange PLC - CFO & Director [5] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. Now this is what probably is one of our more exciting opportunities that we're facing at the moment. So revenues have grown 75% period-on-period. But those revenues are just predicated on existing deals. So there's a flow-through of access market gateway product and also maintenance on existing contracts, but there is no revenue recognition inherent in that number relating to the 3 signed contracts that we referenced earlier. Now the accounting on this is frustrating as a born accountant, I find it very frustrating myself. But for these contracts, there is a requirement for us to only recognize once certain criteria are met around client acceptance. So we will go through a stage of initial conversation with clients moving through to proof of concepts through to signing of contracts and then through to the delivery and ultimate acceptance of that. What we have at the moment is 3 contracts, which are progressing well, where no revenue has yet been recognized. but we are forecasting recognition with that through the second half of this year. And I think one of the ones to note here is that we've spoken previously about a proof of concept that we did around how an exchange could be based in the cloud. And we did this proof of concept jointly with Amazon and with the Singapore Stock Exchange. And what we have really proved is that we are at the cutting edge of delivering technological solutions that our clients are really looking for. And I think it's this opportunity set that we've invested in through the first half of this year, especially to allow us to more quickly expedite this contract delivery. So I think there's a real energy about this at the moment. And this is very much a -- from our client base, which is quite diverse. It's looking from crypto exchanges to digital assets across NFTs and also we started to even talk to some small national exchanges. There's a real interest in what Aquis can deliver in this space. So we've got a very strong pipeline ranging from initial inquiry all the way through down that funnel that I described to the 3 signed contracts. And I think one of the most pleasing aspects we're seeing is we've guided previously that we've seen clients look to sign 3- to 4-year contracts with us that let maturity is substantially increasing now. And this is as clients seek to really tie themselves to the Aquis Technologies set for a long period. And I think for me, this is almost one of the parts that this division, we need to perhaps help investors understand even better because this is not a one-off revenue. The way I would characterize this is we are selling an exchange to a business that they would then use for 2, 3, 4 years, wherever long the contract is. And as their business succeeds, this exchange becomes integral to that success. And so what we are seeing is a maturity event where people will come to the end of that contract and then renew that with us. And I think this is the most pleasing aspect about this division is that we are starting to see that renewal process go on at the same time as we are layering in new contracts that we've won. So I think there's a real interest in what we can do here. And I think that's an interesting point that we as a relatively young disruptive company ourselves, are proving very attractive to other start-up companies in this space. If we look at our competitor set, which might say, for example, be NASDAQ, they are selling a sort of 20-year-old technology and have perceived as a slower (inaudible), whereas we are very much at a cutting edge of what is possible from a cloud technology basis. So I think a lot of opportunities in this space and as I say, I'd reiterate the point that no revenue has yet been recognized on those 3 existing contracts. So I'll probably hand back to Alasdair at this stage just for a few more words about the Aquis Stock Exchange. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alasdair Frederick Seton Haynes, Aquis Exchange PLC - Founder, CEO & Director [6] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, I mean, the excitement for me on the Aquis Stock Exchange is to have achieved profitability ahead of expectation. What we've seen is we've got revenues in the first half of this year at GBP 1.1 million. We said at the very beginning that this is a 3-year plan and that it will take at least 3 years to actually build this into getting accepted by the industry. In all honesty, when you buy a business for a pound, you don't expect to have a huge success story on your hands. But what we did recognize is the value of the license and the importance of having a challenger stock exchange in the United Kingdom. What is very clear. We spent a lot of time talking to policymakers, either a government or through the treasury or through the regulator, is this country is truly brilliant at getting start-up capital. It has tax advantages with SEIS and EIS and entrepreneurs, and there are thousands of them in this country have built great innovative products in all sorts of sectors. Where we fail as a country is in scale up capital when people really want to start to build their business on the success that they've had, whether it's a prototype or the start of revenue generation and scale it. And this tends to be done by banks or through venture capital often through the United States, which actually means that these great businesses are not invested in by the public and often not invested in by the asset management community. We're meaning that the public have no opportunity to invest in the great unicorns of the future. But in summary, this company, I think we've deliberately diversified our business. We think there are enormous opportunities with the Aquis Matching Pool with the technology side of the business, the consolidated tape. I don't know whether you heard that, but the likelihood of a consolidated tape is far more likely now with the Czech presidency within the EU. They think they will finalize it by the end of the year, which means that we'll go into trialogue next year and will become a reality within 2 years or around 2 years/these are things that actually make a material change for our business. We think they are fantastic opportunities. In these all difficult times ahead. And what I love about what Aquis is, is that we're a resilient business. This is a growth business. To take advantage, there are very few companies, I believe, out there which actually have true growth in them across multiple different business lines in a diversified way in the financial market that is profitable and through its own profits and cash generation is able to invest further in order to be able to speed up back to the catalyst for many of the opportunities that we think are there. I think in summary, this growth business has the right model, has the right team we have the advanced technology, and we have the vision to deliver very, very significant shareholder value in the future. And on that note, I think we should open up to questions. ================================================================================ Questions and Answers -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [1] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay. As you know, we received 2 pre-submitted questions from investors. So I thought it might be best to start off with those. The first one here, read as follows. How many clients have moved to upper tiers in the past year, i.e., they have increased the number of orders? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alasdair Frederick Seton Haynes, Aquis Exchange PLC - Founder, CEO & Director [2] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, I mean, on that note, we have got -- I think we've mentioned in the presentation, hopefully, you heard that part. There are 9 clients in the top 3 tiers, 24 clients in the other tiers with 9 liquidity providers. And in that area, I think it's one of the things I said is we haven't seen as much progression as I would have liked to have seen for all sorts of reasons. I mean, the volatility, et cetera, the work on the AMP and stuff but we are evidencing. We've strengthened our quant team to provide the evidence that's necessary, and I still remain very, very confident that we can move many of those 24 clients that are there particularly the ones that are in Tiers 4, 5 and 6 into the top 3 tiers, and that makes a very, very substantial difference to the revenue for the company. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [3] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perfect. The next pre-submitted question here was when will you pay dividends? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alasdair Frederick Seton Haynes, Aquis Exchange PLC - Founder, CEO & Director [4] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, that's a great question. We're asked quite long, you got significant cash we want to continue to invest that cash. We will look at -- I mean, I think dividends is not something you're going to get in the very short term. I think there are other things that we can do them passing cash immediately back, which will be a better return for investors. But obviously, we look at things all the time as to what the future will hold. We are a cash-generative business and but we also want to expand. There's globalization. There's multiple asset classes. There are many things that we're looking at here. So I think at this point in time, I think we want to be the growth company rather than just necessarily the value dividend payer today. But it doesn't precludes it from the future far from it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [5] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And we've also received a few questions here during the live event. And if I may read the first one from David B, which reads as follows. It often takes a market disruptor as is Aquis Exchange time to gain market acceptance. How is this progressing particularly with investment funds that should have much to gain. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alasdair Frederick Seton Haynes, Aquis Exchange PLC - Founder, CEO & Director [6] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, it's a great question because there's no doubt in my mind that Aquis is now being taken far more seriously than it ever has been. And I say that because I've seen advisers and brokers, one in particular that I can think of, that actually wrote to me saying, I can see no point in the future, please never call me and they said this about 2 years ago, we're never going to trade on Aquis. And their membership application came in a month ago. I think there's a lot of change that's happened here. People recognize that we're a serious next-generation exchange, businesses like Equipmake raise GBP 10 million on us. The stock has gone up above 60% since then. And I think people noticed that and say there aren't that many new companies, very exciting businesses that they've seen in the United Kingdom that have done that this year, and that has happened on Aquis. The connectivity of Hargreaves Lansdown recently announced. We've got more announcements to make in the future there. That sort of thing, I think, is putting us on the map I think the regulators, the treasury, the government, all recognize us now as that challenger exchange. And it is so important to have that competitive relationship to drive innovation in the way that NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange did it in the 1990s. And I think that sort of competitive pressure over here in the United Kingdom and across Europe is going to be very, very beneficial for people. And I think it is starting to get noticed. We've got -- we have find advisers, we find brokers make quite certain that standards. We find unsuspended issuers here. Because I think in the past, people have thought maybe this has got a lower standard than other markets, it doesn't. We have really high standards but what we do have is proportional regulation, appropriate trading mechanisms and new innovative ideas right there, which you will hear about over the coming months. Whereby I think we can radically change some of the ways that liquidity is provided. Liquidity is a problem in every growth market, small cap market, and we want to try and change that. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [7] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perfect. The next question here read as follows: are trading volumes on the stock exchange, a KPI for you? Are they where you expect them to be? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alasdair Frederick Seton Haynes, Aquis Exchange PLC - Founder, CEO & Director [8] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, again, absolutely, they're KPI for us. I did not predict, I don't think anybody else predicted or they did, they had a crystal ball, a war in Ukraine with Russia. I think inflation has come back at a much higher level. And therefore, the volatility of the markets is higher than we predicted it to be. We aren't at the level that I wanted it to be. But I think the great thing is that the diversification has allowed us to be ahead of where we expected to be on the technology and ahead of where we expected to be on the Aquis Stock Exchange, which compensates the level which I believe to be temporary. Having said that, we have made all the corrections to the market share side that we said we were going to make. And I think we're in a strong position from here to continue to grow that market share but it wasn't at the level that you asked me what we set as a budget at the beginning of this year. No, we're not at the level that I wanted to. Can we get there over the next few years to where we want to be? Absolutely, we can and we will. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [9] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That's great. Next question here comes from David. Is CME Group and Google's partnership likely to create a significant competitor in the exchange technology space. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alasdair Frederick Seton Haynes, Aquis Exchange PLC - Founder, CEO & Director [10] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The CME Google partnership, really interesting because if I look out there, there's the $1 billion investment. From what I hear from it is it's very good headline stuff, but those haven't made huge progress on it. In the same way as NASDAQ talks about being a cloud technology. There's a very big difference between taking a server in a traditional market and sticking it in the cloud. Yes, there's some cost savings but that is not cloud technology. That isn't cloud-native technology. It is not about developing in the cloud and taking advantage of it. There's a very strong reason why cloud native is so important. And the analogy that I love using is that -- most people on this call will own a car. 93% of the time, your car sits in a garage or sits on the road outside your house. If I gave you the opportunity of buying that car or having that car for 7% of the value you paid, and yet you could still use it whenever you wanted to use it, and it's the same car, everybody on this call would bite my hand off. And that in effect is the economics of cloud technology because most exchanges do not operate 24/7. So if you can provide them an identical, very, very similar product in the cloud, and only charge them for the time that they are actually using that product, then you really can reduce very, very significant cost. That is important for new exchanges that are involved in digital assets or crypto. It's really important for more traditional exchanges that have high expensive contracts lasting many years. When those renewals come then Aquis is in a very, very strong position to take advantage of it. So I don't know whether the CME and the Google relationship will progress. I mean they certainly got enough money behind it. But I think this is an example of a speed boat versus a tanker. The advantage that we've got here is we're nimble, we're fast. We're innovative, and we have got this sales funnel, and we are now talking to national exchanges around the world about cloud technology. We do consulting with them. We actually get paid for consulting. So I think this is a shift that's happening. I think this is a tremendous opportunity for us. And I do believe today we're the market leader in it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [11] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That's great. Got another question here from Alberto, who ask, can you please elaborate a bit more on the cash flow profile of the 3 contracts on licensing you signed once you would deliver them. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Richard Fisher, Aquis Exchange PLC - CFO & Director [12] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. So I think here, to be clear, there is a separation between the cash generation on these contracts and the accounting recognition of the P&L so the cash generation will follow the agreed profile. So say, for a 4-year contract, you would have an agreed amount per month throughout the life of that contract. And that will actually represent the cash flow into the business. From an accounting perspective, you will recognize the large element of that revenue upfront you then create a provision against that provision -- against that recognition and then would release that provision over time. So you do have a separation between accounting recognition as revenue and cash generation. So one of the ones points we are aware of is where we're speaking about these 3 contracts that are being signed, those would be when recognized deliver revenue immediately at that point in time. But actually, the cash generation would come through the life of the contract. So when we're looking at our cash position now, we can start to model out incremental cash flows as those contracts develop. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [13] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That's great. And the next question here asks, can you outline the size of the consolidated tape opportunity? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alasdair Frederick Seton Haynes, Aquis Exchange PLC - Founder, CEO & Director [14] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That truly is a great question and very, very hard. I hate to sound like a politician not being able to answer it. And part of it is that it's still the devil's in the detail. We don't know yet whether this is going to mimic the United States, where the person who provides or the exchange that provides price formation receives more of the tape revenue than the people that like dark pools. As somebody who predominantly is in the lit space, although we now have a dark pool, we would obviously benefit if it copied, if it identically copied what happens in the CTA in the states. What I can say is we do not charge our members' data today. And as Richard mentioned, our data costs are substantially cheaper than our competitors for those people who are not members of our exchange. What we can say though is that the revenue that would come out of a consolidated tape would be passed back to -- from all participants, including our members. So it will be materially larger, and by that being multiples larger of the revenue that we get today with a margin in effect of 100% because we're already providing, there's no extra cost as such for providing that data to a third party. So I think the way that I would look at this is there's a delta to be put on it. I think in today's price, I don't think anybody assumes anything really from the consolidated tape but actually, if the Czech presidency gets this through, I think there is a change in the way that the likelihood of a consolidated tape will come to fruition within the next 2 to 3 years. And I think if that does happen, that really does change and help Aquis a great deal. And not only are you going to get the tape by the way in EU but almost certainly, you're going to get the tape in the U.K. And one of the things we're talking to both regulators about is trying to standardize it. We don't really want to have to do different things in different jurisdictions. So having a tape that people recognize across both jurisdictions will be very helpful for the industry. But I remain incredibly confident now that the consolidated tape will happen, and it will happen sooner now than I thought this time last year. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [15] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A question here from Vishal who asks, we note the progress with Hargreaves for the exchange. Could you please discuss the potential of this relationship in the long run? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alasdair Frederick Seton Haynes, Aquis Exchange PLC - Founder, CEO & Director [16] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, I think I won't hide the fact that we probably didn't have an easy relationship with Hargreaves or any of the online brokers to start with because they were always telling us, look, nobody is interested in trading in your stocks. And when we bought the company, maybe there were only a handful of stocks that people did want to trade in. I think with the changes in what they've seen and also the opportunities they can see also in the fact that we are the seventh largest exchange group in Europe today in terms of volume traded. And that's even with our decline that we saw last year in our market share. I think they recognize the opportunity of the retail market being able to access this incredible liquidity pool, which is less toxic on a subscription basis. So I think there are many, many ways we can get the retail more involved, and I'm excited about being able to offer the retail market more opportunities, more product, more things via the online brokers, not directly ourselves, but via the online brokers as one of those opportunities. So I think, yes, getting people, we need to, and we're still talking to Halifax now. We're talking to IG. There are still others that we need to get over the line, but we're very close on some of them. And I think the relationship between us and Hargreaves now we gone from nobody really wanted to speak to each other actually is very harmonious. And we've talked about a lot of things of what we can do here. And this really is back to that single message, not just get the public back into public markets as the stock exchange, but make quite certain that retail has as much access to the widest liquidity pool across multiple different destinations for them to be able to get the best prices. And I think that's something that we can do. And it's certainly something we'll be discussing later on in the year. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [17] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A question here from Charles which asked what do you expect the impact of the new government to be on Aquis? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alasdair Frederick Seton Haynes, Aquis Exchange PLC - Founder, CEO & Director [18] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, taking anybody's political opinions aside, I think this new government has shown that it actually wants to make Britain open for business. Now whether they're doing that correctly by tax breaks or not, is a personal view that people will have. But what I do know for certain, and I know this because I chair the Citi U.K. Business Council is it is really important from talking to the government that they want to see challenges. They want to see more competition. They want to see Britain progress. And they want to look at any low-hanging fruit that is there that can rapidly change the way that markets operate. And I think from the conversations that I've had, and I've had a number of conversations already is the thing that is really, really interesting to them. We're going to fight the tax breaks for retail. We're going to fight for access for retail. We're going to fight for all these different things to make certain that we get that competitive pressure that allows for innovation and change. And some of these things, the crazy thing is many of the laws are available already and are already in place. The problem is things like guidance notes, recognition by certain bodies that are simply inaccurate, incorrect and are designed for a single marketplace. And many, many times, you talk about I see papers written from treasury and others. So when you talk about the stock exchanges being the London Stock Exchange, there isn't another and I think what is pleasing is that the latest consultation paper that came out about the market review, the wholesale market review by and the listings review by the regulator actually stated this country has 2 vibrant growth markets. Aquis and AIM. And that is the first time that I've actually ever seen a regulatory body talk about Aquis on level terms. And that's exactly what we need because it's that recognition I think it was David who asked the question about will you get recognized? The answer is yes. You have to earn your stripes, you have to get there, but we are being recognized. And I think if you're going to talk to government now, there are a number of people, number of officials who do understand that this country has 2 stock exchanges. And that message, it's critical. We get it across I'm sorry, it's taken so long. I've always said it would be 3 years. And sadly, I think I'm probably right, it has and will take 3 years, which is by next year. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [19] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And just given we're coming up to the hour, potentially one final question for you. If the market doesn't recognize the potential of the stock, do you think you could deploy a buyback? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alasdair Frederick Seton Haynes, Aquis Exchange PLC - Founder, CEO & Director [20] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, I'm obviously not going to disclose what we're going to do because clearly, we can't. But we will look at all things. I think if you asked me that question a year ago when inflation was low, I think that cash sitting on the balance sheet is -- didn't really have an effect on inflation coming back. We've got to look at how can we deploy that cash in a way that we can get the best value, the fastest growth and the best return for our shareholders. So what I would say is I think we'll leave all options open at this point in time. We need to look at what we're doing. It's either question about dividends. My preference is I think there are things that we can do in growth internally will get you a better return. But I will say, we will obviously look at all opportunities at this time. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [21] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alasdair, Richard think you've addressed those questions you can from investors. And of course, the company will review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses on the Investor Meet Company platform. But just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which you know is particularly important to the company, Alasdair. Could I just ask you for a few closing comments. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alasdair Frederick Seton Haynes, Aquis Exchange PLC - Founder, CEO & Director [22] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, look, I think just going back to that very last question about if investors don't recognize the value. I think the important thing for us is maybe in the past, we haven't expressed clearly enough the opportunities that are available in the company. I think people have valued us very much about what's your market share. And in fact, you can do an analysis between market share goes down one day, and we find people sell the market share goes up the next day, and people buy. That is not the way to value Aquis Exchange plc I think the opportunities ahead of us are as exciting now as we head into a recession as they have been at any point in time since we founded the company. I really do look at this technology and think we have something unique. I think we have a unique business model in the exchange business by this subscription. I think we need to utilize that model better and I think our opportunities in the exchange, the stock exchange business are absolutely there because there isn't a better time for the government to need to have competition to raise capital for growth companies and get that scale up capital. So I'm really excited about the next 6 months. I'm really excited about the next 6 years. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [23] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alasdair, Richard, thank you very much for updating investors today. And apologies once again for the technical issues on the call. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management seems to better understand your views and expectations. That's going to take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of Aquis Exchange plc, I would like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.