Ann: Half-year results announcement, page-4

I'm disappointed that no economies of scale are showing up as improving cash burn.

Revenue is rising, but expenses are rising in lock-step. Are there no fixed costs?

Maybe no fixed costs benefits are showing up because: it's not a single main business scaling up, but acquisitions that are growing the revenue, and maybe the multiple businesses don't have much shared expenses?

They mention things like cross-selling benefits and scale efficiencies, which seems logical, but I don't see evidence of it showing up in the cashflow.



Staff expenses are actually getting worse.


A bit weird. Moving in the wrong direction there. It's not like other operating costs are falling, suggesting that the acquisitions have a staff-focused cost structure, as opposed to input costs like books.

Other expenses are flat (as % of receipts), but staff costs are up.


Staff costs have jumped for 2 quarters. I assume an acquisition, with staff costs jumping immediately after. That's one possible explanation - 2 quarters is not really long enough for synergies to flow through to 'shared expenses / cost reduction' or 'cross-selling revenue/receipts'. So given some time, and no more acquisitions, maybe some synergies can flow through to an improved revenue:expenses ratio.

In any case, the SP is down enough that I'm holding to see what happens.