IBM and Majesco form partnership to accelerate new insurance services on IBM Cloud

src: http://sdtimes.com/ibm-majesco-form-partnership-accelerate-new-insurance-services-ibm-cloud/

IBM and Majesco form partnership to accelerate new insurance services on IBM Cloud

NewsWire 

Published: October 3rd, 2016 - SD Times Newswire

IBM today announced a five-year partnership with Majesco, a global provider of core insurance software, consulting and services for insurance business transformation, to jointly offer a new cognitive, cloud-based platform to help insurance carriers worldwide create new services on IBM Cloud.

The global partnership is intended to speed the development of new customer services with predictive data analytics and help insurance providers bring new solutions to their clients. It also becomes the first in what is expected to be a wave of industry partnerships under IBM’s recently announced Industry Platforms business. The new unit was formed to build open industry platforms and the first comprehensive “as a service” solutions designed from the ground up for individual industries.

The joint IBM and Majesco offering will also provide a secure, global incubator for insurance companies to develop and launch new cognitive products and services via the cloud for clients.

Majesco operates in eight countries in all regions of the world, including North America, Europe, Middle East and Asia, and will contribute advanced software to this offering for property and casualty insurance, general liability insurance, life, annuity, pensions and insurance that improves speed to market, customer retention and business processes while responding to regulatory changes.

IBM will contribute Watson and other cognitive application programming interfaces (APIs) that will run on IBM Cloud. This will allow insurance companies to better analyze, price and understand business risks using new data sources and add an engaging and personalized advisory interface to their services. IBM continues to lay the foundation for the API economy by opening up new opportunities to create different kinds of business models via the cloud that can increase customer satisfaction through more personalized services and expanded partner networks – a catalyst for digital transformation.

According to industry experts, the insurance industry is facing multiple forces of change – rapid digitization, changing demographics, rising customer expectations, challenging economic environment and expanding risk of sophisticated fraud.

“The integration of IBM Cloud and cognitive capabilities with Majesco’s market-leading core system for policy, billing and claims will allow for new, innovative products and services for insurers,” said Ketan Mehta, Majesco CEO and co-founder. “This partnership underscores our commitment to accelerate new business services to our clients by providing them technology to transform their insurance business models.”

IBM Watson and other cognitive capabilities will also provide insurance underwriters and actuaries with improved insights into both customer and external data to help reduce risks from claim fraud, consolidate and streamline processes to improve pricing and increase the efficiency of underwriters. These advances can help to ultimately drive a more competitive insurance marketplace.

“IBM is making a strategic shift to unlock new value for clients through platform solutions — industry by industry — that combine IBM Cloud, our cognitive capabilities, new offerings we’re building and the specialized capabilities of ecosystems providers,”  said Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice president, IBM Industry Platforms. “Our insurance clients are facing huge pressures to modernize their business models, keep pace with the explosion of data, transactions, regulatory requirements, and new expectations for the experience of individuals. This partnership with Majesco will accelerate their digital transformations and allow them to discover new insight in the data flowing through their existing processes.”

With decades of industry expertise, IBM is a leader in providing solutions to the insurance industry. Currently, more than 85 percent of insurers ranked in the Global Fortune 500 rely on IBM technology, and another 89 of the top 100 insurers use IBM technology services to run their business.

IBM’s global cloud data center presence includes nearly 50 secure and highly scalable IBM Cloud datacenters in 18 countries on six continents. The company delivers enterprise cloud services ranging from analytics and Watson to Blockchain and the Internet of Things to provide clients with more choice and flexibility in their digital transformation.

Things are looking up for Majesco

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/things-are-looking-up-for-majesco-use-dips-to-buy/articleshow/53972815.cms

By Ranjit Shinde, ET Bureau | Sep 02, 2016, 08.19 AM IST

ET Intelligence Group: Majesco, a small-sized software solutions company carved out of Mumbai-based Mastek, has lost over 38 per cent on bourses since the beginning of 2016 on account of sluggish business momentum and lower operating margin. 

Its profitability was low since the company was investing to build capabilities for addressing the large insurance market in the US. However, the margin showed signs of revival in the June quarter. In addition, the company is expected to regain momentum in the second half of the fiscal. This may prompt long-term investors to use the stock's fall to make fresh purchases 

The US market contributes nearly 89 per cent to its revenues, while the UK generates 7 per cent of the revenue. The company caters to 164 clients in the property and casualty (P&C) and Life & annuity segments. P&C contributes 80 per cent of the revenue. 

Majesco's financial performance in the June quarter was marred by 1 per cent sequential drop in revenue at Rs 220 crore. On the positive side, the company was able to report operating profit of Rs 1.7 crore after reporting operating loss of Rs 1 crore in the previous quarter. In addition, its net profit was Rs 1.5 crore compared with the loss of Rs 2 crore in the March quarter. 

The company expects to clock revenue of $200-225 million by FY18 compared with $113 million in FY16. It also expects to improve operating margin before depreciation (EBITDA margin) substantially to 12-14 per cent from just over half a percent in FY16. 

Majesco's addressable US market size is pegged at over $4 billion reflecting a greater scope to ramp up busi ness. Also, the adoption of new technologies, including cloud, is rising among clients. Majesco currently earns over one-fifth of business by deploying cloud solutions. 

Since the company is in investment mode, its net profit is yet to reach its true potential. In such cases, the stock's valuation is based on revenue. Its current market cap is 1.5 times sales. Considering its revenue target for FY18, the valuation works out to be less than one. Its larger US peer, Guidewire Software trades at price-sales ratio of 11.8. This leaves a plenty of room for the stock to rise provided the company stays on track to meet targets. 

Stand-out stocks and stand-out companies seldom get noticed in troubled times. ET delves into financial performance of India Inc every week to identify stocks and companies that have bucked the trend to emerge stronger. 

This week, we present Majesco.

Plan to raise Rs 250 cr to fund future acquisitions: Majesco

http://m.moneycontrol.com/news/business/plan-to-raise-rs-250-cr-to-fund-future-acquisitions-majesco_6771441.html

30 May 2016 12:54 PM | Source: CNBC-TV18

Majesco’s board has approved the company’s plan to raise Rs 250 crore via Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) route. The board also raised the foreign institutional investors (FII) limit in Majesco to 40 percent. 

The resolution to raise funds is subject to shareholders’ approval. The funds raised will be used towards expansion of both organic and inorganic businesses, says Farid Kazani, Managing Director & Chief Financial Officer of the company. 

Majesco is evaluating few companies in digital and front-end system space with revenue size of USD 10-20 million, Kazani says. The company closed FY16 with USD 15.4 million debt and cash flow of USD 10 million. 

Kazani is confident that the company will meet its FY18 guidance of USD 220-225 million and gross margins of 49-50 percent.

Below is the verbatim transcript of Farid Kazani’s interview with Reema Tendulkar & Nigel D'Souza on CNBC-TV18.

Nigel: Rs 250 crore is exactly what you are looking to raise, why exactly are you looking to raise this and also could you tell us how are things looking now in your balance sheet? How much of cash do you have in your books, how are things looking?

A: This is enabling resolution which the board has approved for raising up to Rs 250 crore which is subject to shareholder approval. We had in our last year, closed the year with almost of 42 percent growth and we are expecting to kind of grow further both organic and inorganic and bring acquisitions to kind of propel the growth where we see opportunities largely in the north America insurance business. 

So, the fund raise is going to be typically in terms of growing our business both organically and inorganically.

As of today we have in the books of Majesco roughly around USD 14 million of debt and cash of roughly around USD 10 million so, at some point of time we would like to kind of ensure that the growth is taken care of by mix of both debt and equity. 

Reema: Are you already in conversation with potential companies that you would like to acquire? Will you use the entire Rs 250 crore, are you open to perhaps taking on some more debt in increasing the size of the acquisition? Give us some colour of what the company’s strategy is on the merger and acquisition (M&A) front?

A: There are some acquisitions that we are evaluating which are in flight and these acquisitions obviously range between a USD 10-25 million in terms of revenue size. This is something which we have been working towards and our expectations to look at acquisition that will help improve our capabilities to deliver a much better suite of solutions for our insurance clients. 

So, while we are looking at acquisitions in the space of digital and frontend systems, our expectation is whenever the acquisitions because it is all linked to closure times and in terms of valuations so, whenever it happens we would prefer to have the cash in hand or the funding in hand to make those kind of acquisitions possible.

Nigel: You are saying that you are looking at companies that will help your revenues by around USD 10-20 million. Last year you did roughly around the USD 115 million thereabouts on the topline, but your outlook for the next couple of years says that you are going to be looking at around USD 220 million? How exactly do you reach that mark, some part of it will come in through acquisitions yes, but the other part of your business we expected to grow so robust here?

A: Traditionally, if you see our business in the insurance side has grown upwards of 20 percent on a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) basis and if you look at the current year though we closed at USD 115 million in Majesco India consolidated ended up with a very strong order backlog position of USD 73 million. 

This gives us good confidence to see a very good organic growth. We will need to kind of work towards acquisitions so while we have a goal which we have set for 2018 at USD 200-225 it is going to be with driving strong organic growth and doing some acquisitions. 

Reema: According to your internal target of 2018 you are also expecting significantly higher EBITDA margins, Currently, it what closed to about 1 percent odd. You are expected to move up to double digits what will be the key driver? 

A: There will be multiple drivers to that. One is as I mentioned there has to be a good build up of the revenue which will see a good expansion in the gross margins. 

So, while we closed our gross margins at closer to 45 in this year we are expecting that at the base of the revenue we should get to around 49-50 percent on the gross margins. Coupled with that there will be a strong operating leverage with spends that we do on the product development and Selling, General, Administrative and Other Expenses (SG&A) that will help us to get to the double digits in the margins.

Majesco US Q4 results

Src : http://investors.majesco.com/file/Index?KeyFile=34263024

Majesco Announces Fiscal 2016 Year-End Financial Results

Company Release - 5/10/2016 4:15 PM ET

Fourth Quarter Revenue up 48.8%

Fiscal 2016 Revenue up 42.9%

Year End Order Backlog up 14.1% sequentially to $71.9 Million

MORRISTOWN, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Majesco, a global provider of core insurance software, consulting and services for insurance business transformation, today announced its financial results for the fiscal 2016 fourth quarter and fiscal year ended March 31, 2016.

“Fiscal 2016 has created a solid foundation and path to scale our business plan with significant progress across all key performance indicators,” commented Ketan Mehta, CEO and Co-Founder. “As we have stated previously, year one of our growth journey was dedicated to investing in our business to drive order book growth and market penetration. I am pleased with our results as the investments we made in our products, sales, marketing and infrastructure, have resulted in 43% increase in revenues, 47% increase in order backlog and 17 new customer wins during the year. In addition, I am particularly encouraged by the 9.1% increase in revenue we achieved on a sequential quarter basis.

“As we enter the new fiscal year, we are focused on our customer’s implementation success, revenue growth and profitability to achieve our 2018 goal of delivering revenue of $ 200 to $ 225 million and EBIDTA of over 12%.

“We continue to gain momentum across mid-market, start-up and tier 1 carriers with our core, digital, data, distribution and cloud businesses and I am excited to share more about our plans for the future at our May 11, 2016 investor day.”

Financial Highlights

For the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2016

• Revenue for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2016 increased 48.8% to $32.3 million as compared to $21.7 million in the corresponding quarter of last year. The growth was primarily driven by favourable momentum in Majesco’s P&C and L&A business, new customer wins, expanding customer relationships during the year, and the addition of Cover-All. On a sequential basis, fourth quarter revenue increased 9.1% compared to $29.6 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2015.
• Gross profit was $14.4 million (44.7% of revenue) for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2016, compared to $7.1 million (32.5% of revenue) for the quarter ended March 31, 2015. The 12.2 percentage point increase in gross margin was primarily due to the increase in revenues, a favorable mix of higher margin business and a 6.5% margin impact in the fourth quarter of 2015 due to the termination by a customer of a project in the India Asia Pacific geography for which a reserve had been taken in the quarter ended March 31, 2015.
• Research and development expenses were $4.6 million (14.3% of revenue) during the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2016 as compared to $2.5 million (11.4% of revenue) during the quarter ended March 31, 2015, largely on account of planned product investments in both the P&C and L&A segments.
• SG&A expenses were $10.5 million (32.6% of revenue) during the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2016 as compared to $5.4 million (25.0% of revenue) during the quarter ended March 31, 2015. The increased SG&A expense for the fiscal 2016 fourth quarter was primarily due to the expansion of Majesco’s global sales and marketing infrastructure and the impact of the merger with Cover-All.
• Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2016 was $0.4 million (1.3% of revenue) as compared to $1.3 million (5.8% of revenue) during the quarter ended March 31, 2015.
• Net loss for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2016 was $1.5 million, or ($0.04) per share as compared to a net loss of $0.9 million, or ($0.03) per share for the quarter ended March 31, 2015.
  
  
  EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are non-GAAP measures. Reconciliation tables of EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA as used in this press release to GAAP are included in the financial section of this press release.

For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016

• Revenue for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016 increased 42.9% to $113.3 million as compared to $79.3 million for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2015.
• Gross profit was $50.5 million (44.5% of revenue) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016, compared to $30.5 million (38.5% of revenue) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2015. The improvement in gross margin was primarily due to good revenue momentum in Majesco’s P&C and L&A businesses.
• Research and development expenses were $16.3 million (14.4% of revenue) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016 as compared to $10.3 million (13.0% of revenue) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2015.
• SG&A expenses were $38.2 million (33.7% of revenue) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016 as compared to $21.0 million (26.5% of revenue) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2015.
• Adjusted EBITDA for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016 was $0.6 million (0.5% of revenue) as compared to $3.0 million (3.8% of revenue) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2015.
• Net loss for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016 was $3.6 million or ($0.10) per share as compared to a net loss of $0.7 million, or ($0.02) per share for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2015.

Balance Sheet

• Majesco had cash and cash equivalents of $6.2 million at March 31, 2016, compared to $6.5 million at March 31, 2015, and $9.7 million at December 31, 2015.
• Total debt at March 31, 2016 was $13.8 million, compared to $4.5 million at March 31, 2015, and $12.0 million at December 31, 2015.

Operating Highlights

• The company added three new clients during the quarter resulting in a total of 17 new client wins for the fiscal year. This included Maine Mutual Group, a mid-market insurer, selecting Majesco P&C Suite and Majesco Business Analytics in the Cloud; UNUM, a tier one insurer, selecting Majesco L&A Policy and Majesco Billing; QBE, a top 20 insurer selecting Majesco Billing, Policy Admin and Business Analytics in the cloud; and Clear Blue Financial Holdings, a new start-up, selecting Majesco Data Services and Majesco Digital Services. The total client count as of March 31, 2016 stands at 149.
• In addition, Majesco expanded its relationship with a number of existing client accounts, including two tier 1 insurers highlighting progress with our cross sale strategy. This included the expanding relationship with Homesite to support their broadening product portfolio and geographical presence in the U.S. and Hallmark Financial Services who selected Majesco’s Policy for P&C as their strategic enterprise platform for the Hallmark Commercial Insurance Solutions division.
• Majesco announced the release of Majesco Testing Services that includes strategic test consulting, insurance automation framework and digital testing framework.
• The 12-month backlog at March 31, 2016 was $71.9 million as compared to $63.0 million at December 31, 2015, up 14.1% reflecting strong growth momentum and higher by 47% as compared to March 31, 2015.
• Majesco announced its expanding partnership ecosystem with the additions of Business Agility and Splice software strengthening the portfolio of offerings to clients and cloud business model.

One Alliance Insurance Selects Majesco Policy as Strategic Enterprise Platform

Src : http://investors.majesco.com/file/Index?KeyFile=34194198

One Alliance Insurance Selects Majesco Policy as Strategic Enterprise Platform

Company Release - 5/5/2016 8:45 AM ET

Majesco Policy to support new start-up Alliance One market entrance with new commercial package and commercial auto lines of business

MORRISTOWN, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Majesco (NYSE MKT: MJCO), a global provider of core insurance software, consulting and services for insurance business transformation, today announced that the San Juan, Puerto Rico based insurer One Alliance Insurance Corporation has selected Majesco Policy for P&C and Majesco Bureau and Content Services as their strategic enterprise platform.

Commenting on the selection, Victor R. Rios CEO of One Alliance, said, “As a fresh start-up, One Alliance will offer a wide range of new commercial products. Majesco’ successful track record in the Puerto Rican market and with other start-ups and green field insurers were key factors in the selection. Majesco Policy’s robust pre-built content and ISO products are designed to lower implementation risk and cost while significantly increasing speed to market. We are excited about our potential together as long-term partners.”

Majesco Policy will support One Alliance for commercial auto and commercial package lines of business including commercial property, general liability, inland marine and crime. Majesco Bureau and Content Services will provide ongoing updates for ISO content.

“We are excited to include One Alliance into our growing customer base and growing group of innovative start-ups and green field insurers,” commented Ed Ossie, COO for Majesco. “Our focus on providing insurers like One Alliance with content-rich, pre-built ISO products within Majesco Policy for P&C, is designed to enable them to respond to a rapidly changing market dynamic and new commercial risk opportunities through agility, innovation and speed to market capabilities.”

Majesco Policy for P&C provides pre-configured ISO content, including all rates, rules, forms, taxes, fees, and surcharges for 52 jurisdictions (including DC and Puerto Rico) and also provides a well experienced monthly bureau content update service. Together the preconfigured bureau content and Majesco Bureau and Content Services enable agility, rapid product innovation and speed to market opportunities for insurance companies to introduce new products and reach new markets quickly and cost effectively to capture market share.