• GBST – Australia’s largest provider of securities transaction processing - today announced a normalised profit before tax of $4.66 million for the year ended 30 June 2005. This represents an increase of $1.21 million or 35.3% on the prior comparative period and an increase of $140,000 on the prospectus forecast of May 2005.
  
  
• EBITDA of $4.94 million represents an increase of $942,000 or 23.5% over the comparison period, with the EBITDA margin strengthening to 22% of operating revenue - even after expenses of $3 million in research and development activities.
  
  
• Other highlights include the rollout during the year of Shares 6.0™ - the latest release of GBST’s core product - to all Australian clients.
  
  
• At 30 June 2005, the company had cash of $6.88 million and no borrowings, leaving it strongly positioned to target acquisitions and other opportunities in 2006.

Results Summary

* Result prior to impact of normalising items

The Directors of GBST are pleased to announce a normalised profit before tax of $4.66 million for the year ended 30 June 2005. The result represents a significant increase of 35% on the comparative result for the year ended 30 June 2004 and an increase of $140,000 on the company’s prospectus forecast issued in May 2005.

Reported profit after tax, of $4.45 million, includes non recurring items as outlined in the company’s recent prospectus. The result also includes a one-off tax credit of $667,000 arising from the recognition of timing differences and carried forward tax losses from prior years.

Normalised EPS of 7.54c represents normalised profit after tax, divided by the shares on issue at 30 June 2005. Care should be taken in interpreting reported Basic EPS and Diluted EPS, which are presented on a weighted basis and include in their calculation a number of share capital restructuring events undertaken prior to the company listing on the ASX in June 2005.

In accordance with GBST’s dividend policy outlined in the prospectus, GBST does not propose to pay a final dividend.

Operational Highlights

Discussing the result, GBST Chairman Mr John Puttick, said “We are very pleased to announce that our inaugural results as a listed company have exceeded our prospectus forecast and have delivered growth in revenue, improved profitability and further strengthening of our EBITDA margins.”

GBST’s commitment to maintaining market leading products and building on its extensive domain knowledge of the industry continued during the year with a further investment of $3 million in research and development activities, all of which were expensed.

GBST’s product offerings also reached significant milestones with the latest release of its core transaction processing product GBST Shares 6.0™ being rolled out across the entire Australian client base. This release significantly enhances the ability of all GBST products and services to integrate with other systems and clients’ ability to transact with other financial participants. The release also enables exception based processing and workflow automation, both of which serve to drive down the cost of transaction processing.

The company continued to diversify its revenue mix by introducing new products into the advisory areas of its clients with GBST Client Profiling and GBST Floats™.

Mr Puttick acknowledges, “2005 was a year of achievement for GBST. These achievements are a credit to our CEO and Managing Director, Stephen Lake, his Management Team and indeed the commitment by all staff. It was with this in mind that we put in place an Employee Share Option Scheme during the year to empower our staff with a more direct feeling of participation and alignment with the interests of other shareholders in GBST.”

Stephen Lake, CEO and Managing Director, emphasised GBST’s extensive domain knowledge and focus on building market leading products as solid foundations for sustainable growth. “Our strategy is to build on our specialist industry knowledge and experience by extending our products to other financial instruments, and adding to the community of industry participants on GBST’s network,” he said. “The success of our Third Party Clearing clients and the recent acquisition of another Third Party Clearing service provider (targeting both offshore and domestic brokers) is an example of this success.”

“Our balance sheet at 30 June 2005 had $6.88 million cash and no borrowings,” said Mr Lake. “Moreover the favourable equity market conditions of 2005 have continued since the end of the financial year and strengthened our position to target acquisition and other opportunities during 2006.”

Preliminary Final Report

Appendix 4E - Preliminary final report (PDF 23 kb)

About GBST

Established in 1983, GBST (Global Banking and Securities Transactions) is the largest provider of securities transaction processing in Australia and a leading provider of transaction solutions for the global financial services industry. GBST Shares™, the trading, clearing, and settlement system preferred by the majority of Australian stockbrokers, processes up to half of all daily trades on the Australian Stock Exchange and also facilitates cross-border trading in New Zealand and Hong Kong.

GBST’s core competence is real time integrated transaction processing which reduces costs and the need for and risks to capital for a wide variety of market participants, including: global investment banks, custodians, clearers, stockbrokers, exchanges, margin lenders, and cash management providers. With offices in Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Hong Kong, GBST has over 130 staff committed to providing advanced transaction solutions.

www.gbst.com

Contact

David Doyle
Company Secretary
GBST Holdings
Telephone: +61 7 3331 5555
Email: david.doyle@gbst.com

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