New Zealand’s Straker Translations (ASX:STG) increased revenues by 28% in June 2020 compared to the same month in 2019, according to quarterly filings with the Australian Stock Exchange, where the company is listed. CEO Grant Straker told Multilingual News that “we are happy with the fantastic result by the Straker team delivering for our customers in crazy times. I feel like I could write a book about that quarter!”
Straker’s market capitalization is approximately $41 million. Its stock price went up 7% on this announcement.
Media, mergers and acquisitions
The company’s growth is tied to the media segment and new enterprise opportunities in video conferences and online business, fueled by advances in its AI-driven proprietary technology which includes speech recognition and subtitling features. While revenue from traditional work was affected during the year, it was offset by growth in new market segments until last June, when all workstreams picked up the pace. The revenue run rate would put the company’s annualized revenue at NZD 31.7 million ($21.1 million).
Straker has invested efforts in R&D projects, as the company believes that AI-powered services for the media segment like subtitling and advanced dubbing will bring positive results for the business. Another accelerator for growth will be the restart of M&A activities with a goal to complete at least one deal before the end of Fiscal Year 2021, backed by the strong capital position and stable cash flow of the company.
Grant states that “technology is at the heart of our customer value proposition. We have brought machines and humans together in a way that no other translation company has been able to do, and this has allowed us to continually decrease production time while increasing accuracy.”
New blood
Earlier this month, Straker Translations announced the appointment of David Ingram as its new Chief Financial Officer after the resignation of Haydn Marks in June. Also in July, Amanda Cribb joined the board of Straker as an independent non-executive director.
The full report to the shareholders can be found on the ASX website.
