Eight Capital Ptnrs. - 2023 Half-year Report

29 September 2023

EIGHT CAPITAL PARTNERS PLC

("Eight Capital" "ECP" or the "Company")

UNAUDITED HALF-YEARLY REPORT FOR THE SIX MONTHS ENDED 30 JUNE 2023

Eight Capital Partners plc (AQSE: ECP), announces its unaudited half-yearly results for the half year ending 30 June 2023.  Comparative figures are shown for the comparable period in the previous financial year unless otherwise stated:

Chairman's Interim Report

The Company has built on the results announced in the 2022 Annual Report and Consolidated Financial Statements and is reporting a net profit of £1.2m in the period (2022: £0.5m loss).  Revenues, predominantly from project related fees, were a satisfactory £0.6m (2022: £0.05m) and although administration costs grew to £1.3m (2022: £0.4m), this was largely due to a £0.7m unrealised foreign exchange loss, which was offset by a £1.7m fair value gain on the Company's listed investments.

As noted in the 2022 Annual Report and Consolidated Financial Statements that were announced on 12 September 2023, subsequent to the balance date of these interim results, the Group has further strengthened its balance sheet.  On 11 August 2023 the Company announced that a general meeting of the holders of the Company's €10,000,000 4.8% Bonds had approved the conversion of those bonds, together with the interest payment due on 3 September 2023, into new ordinary shares in ECP.  On 8 September 2023 the Company announced that, further to the announcement on 11 August 2023, application had been made for 25,577,732,855 new ordinary shares at a price of 0.02525 pence per new ordinary share in lieu of the conversion of the Notes and accrued interest.

In September 2021 Eight Capital first announced that it would be implementing a plan to strengthen the balance sheet with the objective of moving the market cap of the business towards £50m.  The four step strategy including debt to equity conversions outlined has been implemented and Eight Capital today has a market cap of approximately £49 million, with minimal third party financial debt and a recurring revenue stream of €1 million from interest payments.

The Company is now well placed to execute its fintech strategy: 

- building fintech businesses through roll-up of other existing fintechs in the same sector (such as Neobanking and SME digital lending); and 

- acquisition of and digitisation of traditional wealth and asset management businesses to create a scaled up fintech - digital asset manager.

This was confirmed in the circular dated 29 September 2022 and in the Annual Report published in August 2023, where it announced  that it intended to establish a digital bank division through the acquisition of a NeoBank at  the core of its digital lending strategy. SMEs continue to be under‑served by the traditional financial services sector and are sometimes overlooked by larger funding institutions, or, when managed through a traditional banking process, are perceived as difficult to underwrite and therefore expensive to fund.  There are significant benefits for SMEs using "fintech" systems and innovatively structured capital solutions to better access capital, either for direct investment or to assist with their working capital management. ECP's intention is to create a pan-European SME digital lending platform that would deliver faster, quicker and  cheaper capital to SME clients.  The team has been working intensely towards delivering this strategy and has a number of opportunities that have been developed, with strong potential for a near-term announcement. 

In addition, the Company also explained that it believes there is a significant opportunity in wealth and asset management tech, through the acquisition and integration of sub-scale traditional asset managers into a larger, more efficient tech-enabled business.  It now intends to establish a second division focused on this roll-up and digitisation asset management strategy, in order that it has resources to analyse two specific opportunities in the sector, for delivery in 2024.  It is seeing an increasing number of wealth and asset management consolidation opportunities, that, subject to pricing and building a strong digitisation team pre-acquisition, it intends to progress in 2024.

Dominic White

Chairman

28 September 2023

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of the UK Market Abuse Regulation.

The Directors of the Company take responsibility for this announcement.

For further information, please contact:

About Eight Capital Partners:

Eight Capital partners plc is a financial services operating company that aims to grow revenue through businesses engaged in "Fintech" operations including in the digital banking and lending sectors.

ECP seeks to grow its group revenue in these high growth fintech sub-sectors, which it expects to also increase in value, such that they generate an attractive rate of return for shareholders, predominantly through capital appreciation.

www.eight.capital

Eight Capital Partners operates two subsidiary businesses:

Epsion Capital:

Epsion Capital is an independent corporate advisory firm based in London with an extensive experience in UK and European capital markets. The team of senior and experienced ECM and M&A professionals is specialised across multiple markets, sectors and geographies and it prides itself on a commercial approach that allows the clients to achieve their growth ambitions. www.epsioncapital.com

Innovative Finance:

Innovative Finance is a corporate finance advisory business that develops mergers and acquisitions and financing solutions across multiple sectors, primarily in Europe, with access to international transactions. It focuses on investments in Europe which are linked to technological developments in the financial services industry. www.innovfinance.com

Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements in this announcement, are, or may be deemed to be, forward looking statements. Forward looking statements are identified by their use of terms and phrases such as "believe", "could", "should", "envisage'', "estimate", "intend", "may", "plan", "potentially", "expect", "will" or the negative of those, variations or comparable expressions, including references to assumptions. These forward-looking statements are not based on historical facts but rather on the Directors' current expectations and assumptions regarding the Company's future growth, results of operations, performance, future capital and other expenditures (including the amount, nature and sources of funding thereof), competitive advantages, business prospects and opportunities. Such forward looking statements reflect the Directors' current beliefs and assumptions and are based on information currently available to the Directors.

Eight Capital Partners plc

Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income

for the six months ended 30 June 2023

Eight Capital Partners plc

Consolidated Statement of Financial Position at 30 June 2023