Dillistone shares jump as company guides higher on operating profits

Share in Dillistone jumped after the company guided towards significantly better-than-expected full-year operating profits and sounded a confident note on the likely success of its new GatedTalent platform.

The recruitment software company's subsidiaries Dillistone Systems and Voyager Software were expected to be profitable, although GatedTalent did not deliver any revenue as it was still in development last year, the recruitment software company said in trading update.

Since year-end the new platform had gone 'live', generating a strong response from clients which led Dillistone to more than double its forecast for the number of messages it expected GatedTalent to eventually process to over 2.0m.

Jason Starr, chief executive at Dillistone, said: "We are pleased that the level of demand is continuing, and that client subscription levels have more than doubled over the last two months and remain ahead of expectations."

However, Starr was careful not to stoke expectations too much, adding: "However, as many of our clients are planning to delay the sending of messages until closer to the May deadline, it remains too early to say what percentage of executives contacted will create profiles on our platform. It is from such profiles that we will derive much of our long-term revenue."

Launched in October, GatedTalent is a network for executives to communicate privately with recruiters while ensuring GDPR compliance.

In December, Dillistone reported that the product's launch was the most successful in their history with contracts signed by over 20 UK firms and from more than a dozen European countries.

"[...] We anticipate that the approaching General Data Protection Regulation deadline (in May 2018) will continue to drive business activity and look forward to updating the market further at the time of our 2017 full year results announcement," Starr said.

Management also reiterated its forecast for GatedTalent and its GDPR initiatives to have a positive impact on its first half order book.

The group ended the year with £1.4m in cash.

As of 1045 GMT, shares of Dillistone Group were up 20.64%.