Chair's statement

Profit before tax for the year was £67.2m, a decrease of 10% from the prior year figure of £75.0m; the reduction is driven by the 2020 exceptional gain on the sale of our subsidiary, The Loop (the fibre business based in Manchester). Adjusted EBITDA for the Group increased by £16.4m (21%) to £95.4m (2020: £79.0m). Adjusted items are explained and reconciled in the Financial review and note 3. Fully diluted earnings per share for the year decreased by 17% to 55.2p (2020: 66.6p); the prior year figure was increased by the profit of £19.5m made on the sale of our subsidiary, The Loop. Adjusted earnings per share (Fully Diluted) for the year increased by 25% to 64.0p (2020: 51.3p).

The cash generated by operations for the year was £89.8m compared to £70.3m in 2020. The closing Net Cash balance for the year was £49.5m (2020: £48.0m). It is pleasing to see that this cash balance has increased despite investing £16.8m on capital expenditure, £49.3m on acquisitions and paying £11.7m in dividends. This is testament to a strong focus on cash generation from management.

Overview of the year

As outlined in this report, the year has been one of strong strategic execution for Gamma with the following highlights:

• The whole business has continued to respond well to the ongoing difficulties COVID-19 has brought; we have demonstrated that we are able to run the business with the vast majority of our staff working from their homes. We are moving to hybrid working for some parts of our business which we believe will allow us to attract and retain staff.
• The Group’s revenue model has proved robust and its product set supports businesses which have either had to work remotely or have chosen to do so because they see the advantages of flexible working patterns.
• On 3 March 2021 we significantly expanded our software development capability through the acquisition of Manchester based Mission Labs. Gamma had been partnering with Mission Labs for over 18 months on projects such as PhoneLine+. The acquisition gives Gamma additional development capabilities in the rapidly evolving markets of Cloud Contact Centre and Cloud Communications.
• The acquisition also enables Gamma to accelerate our digital strategy. Mission Labs owns a digitally based voice application CircleLoop. This is a UCaaS technology platform which provides a cloud-based telephony product fully serviced through web, desktop and mobile applications. It is aimed at the micro-business market. The fact that Gamma owns this capability will enable us to roll it out in other territories to address a key market opportunity in the UK and Europe.
• During the year we have increasingly seen the importance of partnering with Microsoft Teams. We had previously launched a Microsoft Teams Direct Routing product to our Channel Partners, making Gamma’s market-leading SIP trunks available to Enterprises which use Microsoft Teams. On 27 September 2021 we announced we had been successful in our efforts to work with Microsoft to join the Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams programme. Operator Connect is a new operator-managed programme from Microsoft designed to enable seamless and integrated PSTN calling to Teams.
• In July 2021 we launched a product enhancement which allows users to integrate their Horizon Cloud product with Microsoft Teams.
• During the first half we launched our Cloud Contact Centre product – Horizon Contact. This was developed by our team of in-house software developers and is a fully integrated additional module that attaches to our core Horizon Cloud product.
• We committed to becoming a carbon net-zero business by 2042.

Board and governance

In December 2021, I was pleased to announce two key appointments which reiterate our focus on developing our senior leadership capacity, ensuring that we capitalise on Gamma's significant growth opportunities.

First, Andrew Belshaw, who has been Chief Financial Officer since Gamma's IPO in 2014, will be appointed Deputy Chief Executive from 1 May 2022. He will continue to report to Andrew Taylor and to be a member of Gamma's Board of Directors. In this role, Andrew will take on a range of strategic and operational responsibilities to support the development and growth of the Group. These responsibilities will include overseeing aspects of product management, product development and operations and the execution of M&A. Andrew will also oversee Gamma's group people strategy, ensuring that Gamma attracts and retains great talent while continuing to be a great place to work.

Taking over from Andrew Belshaw, Bill Castell has been appointed Chief Financial Officer. Bill will report to Andrew Taylor and will join the Company and the Board of Directors on 1 May 2022. Bill is currently Chief Financial Officer at OVO Energy, the technology-led green energy business. Before joining OVO Energy in 2020, Bill spent three years at Virgin Media which he joined as Deputy Chief Financial Officer and later became acting Chief Financial Officer. From 2005 to 2017, Bill was at Barclays Bank where he held a number of senior finance roles including Chief Financial Officer at Barclays Corporate Bank and Chief Financial Officer of Barclaycard Europe.

We continue to adhere to the QCA Corporate Governance Code (2018 edition) (the ‘QCA Code’).

Employees

At 31 December 2021, we had 1,745 employees in the Group based in seven countries (2020:1,530). During the year I was pleased to welcome the staff of Mission Labs into the Gamma Group.

We encourage all employees to own shares in the Company. For our UK based employees, we offered a Sharesave scheme for the fifth year in a row. Once again, it was pleasing to see the high take-up, with 402 staff choosing to participate in the scheme (2020: 449). We also run an “Evergreen SIP” scheme which gives employees a further opportunity to buy shares in the Company in a tax-efficient way. We are actively exploring ways in which our non-UK based employees can own Gamma shares.

During the year we have found recruitment harder than previously and we are also seeing inflationary pressure in wages. However, we continue to see the Gamma culture as a differentiator which allows us to recruit and retain the talented individuals that we need to drive the business forwards.

We would like to express our thanks to all of our staff for their dedication, hard work and enthusiasm.

Dividend

Gamma remains committed to a progressive dividend policy which has seen the dividend increase by between 10-15% every year since our IPO in 2014. Gamma has paid one third of the dividend as an interim dividend with the final two thirds paid as a final dividend once the results for the full year are known.

The Board is pleased to propose a final dividend, in respect of the year ended 31 December 2021, of 8.8p per share (2020: 7.8p), an increase of 13%. Subject to shareholder approval at the forthcoming AGM, this dividend will be payable on Thursday 23 June 2022 to shareholders on the register on Friday 3 June 2022. When added to the 4.4p interim dividend (2020: 3.9p) this would make a total dividend of 13.2p for the year as a whole (2020: 11.7p).

Environmental

As a business which enables other companies to reduce their carbon footprint by communicating and collaborating from multiple sites and thereby reducing the need to travel, we continue to challenge ourselves on our own environmental credentials.

Over the last 12 months Gamma has made significant progress in extending its reporting boundary in line with the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) regulations and has increased the scope of reporting to include all recent acquisitions in Europe. Using this extended scope in 2021 Gamma has set its baseline energy and carbon emissions data which will be used to support future emissions reduction targets.

I am pleased to announce that Gamma has developed a detailed plan for carbon reduction which allows us to commit to moving from a Carbon Neutral business to become a carbon net-zero business by 2042, supporting both the Paris Treaty’s aims to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C globally by 2050 and the UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Climate Action.

Current Trading and Outlook

Gamma will continue to concentrate its efforts and investment to develop a product set which facilitates flexible working for businesses of all sizes, building on an already strong reputation for operational excellence and service quality. We will also partner with organisations such as Microsoft (Teams) and Amazon (Amazon Connect) to provide solutions to our Enterprise and Public Sector customers.

Our business is confined to the countries in which we operate. We therefore are not expecting a significant direct impact on our results caused by the war in Ukraine. Our sympathies are with all those who are affected by the conflict, and I am proud of the Gamma family who are raising funds to support those affected.

We have had a positive start to the year following the pre and post Christmas lock down periods in most countries and the Board is positive about the outlook for the Group in 2022 and beyond. We believe that more and more businesses of all sizes are seeing the advantages of UCaaS and we expect to see continuous growth in UCaaS product sales.