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WANdisco

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FY2020 Annual Report · WANdisco
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WANdisco plc
Annual Report and Accounts 2020

WANdisco is 
the LiveData 
company

WANdisco solutions enable enterprises to create an 
environment where data is always available, accurate 
and protected, creating a strong backbone for their IT 
infrastructure and a bedrock for running consistent, 
accurate machine learning applications. With zero 
downtime and zero data loss, WANdisco’s products 
keep geographically dispersed data at any scale 
consistent between on-premises and cloud 
environments allowing businesses to operate 
seamlessly in a hybrid or multi-cloud environment.

WANdisco has over a hundred customers and 
significant go-to-market partnerships with Microsoft 
Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Oracle, 
and others, as well as OEM relationships with IBM 
and Alibaba.

Learn more about our solutions from page 4

Reasons to invest in WANdisco

Innovative technology 

Significant opportunity

Our technology is based on a 
patented, high-performance 
coordination engine

$9.0m

development spend

Our addressable market is expanding

 $1bn–
$1.5bn

total addressable market

Learn more about our innovative 
technology from page 12

Learn more about our significant 
opportunity from page 9

Talented people

We have an exceptional 
pool of talent and we are 
committed to excellence 

Strong partnerships

Significant go-to-market partnerships 
with Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web 
Services, Google Cloud, Oracle, Databricks 
and top Systems Integrators as well as 
OEM relationships with IBM and Alibaba

180

28

employees at 31 December 2020

partner relationships

Learn more about our talented 
people from page 12

Learn more about our strong 
partnerships from page 12

Contents

Overview

02  Our year in review

04  WANdisco at a glance

Strategic report

06  Chairman and Chief Executive’s report

08  Our markets

12  Our business model

14  Our partnerships and technology

16  Our strategy

20  Key performance indicators

22  Risks

26  Financial review

28  Sustainability

Corporate governance

32  Board of Directors

34  Executive Team

36  Vice Chairman’s introduction 

to governance

37  Corporate governance report

41  Nomination Committee report

42  Audit Committee report

44   Remuneration Committee 
and remuneration report

47  Directors’ report

49  Statement of Directors’ responsibilities

Financial statements

50   Independent auditor’s report to 
the members of WANdisco plc

55   Consolidated statement of profit or 

loss and other comprehensive income

56  Consolidated statement 
of financial position

57   Consolidated statement 
of changes in equity

58  Consolidated statement of cash flows

59   Notes to the consolidated 
financial statements

88  Five-year record

89  Notice of Annual General Meeting

93   Secretary, advisers and share 

capital information

01

 
Our year in review

2020 highlights

Financial highlights

Revenue ($m)

$10.5m

20

19

18

17

16

10.5

11.4

16.2

17.0

19.6

Cash ($m)

$21.0m

20

19

18

17

16

10.8

7.6

21.0

23.4

27.4

Cash overheads ($m)¹

Adjusted EBITDA ($m)²

Statutory loss for the year ($m)

$36.9m

$(22.2)m

$(34.3)m

20

19

18

17

16

36.9

(22.2)

31.7

29.8

24.5

23.4

20

19

18

17

16

(11.7)

(9.4)

(0.6)

(7.5)

(34.3)

(28.3)

20

19

18

17

16

(19.7)

(13.5)

(9.3)

Note: Throughout this document, alternative performance measures have been used which are non-GAAP 
measures that are presented to provide readers with additional financial information that is regularly reviewed 
by management and should not be viewed in isolation or as an alternative to the equivalent GAAP measure. 
See Note 5 for details.

1   Operating expense adjusted for: depreciation, amortisation, capitalisation of development expenditure 

and equity-settled share-based payment. See Note 9 for a reconciliation. 

2   Operating loss adjusted for: depreciation, amortisation and equity-settled share-based payment. 

See Note 9 for a reconciliation.

  Stay up to date with the latest news and investor information at: wandisco.com

Microsoft Azure LiveData Platform launch

Secured a global reseller agreement with 
a large global systems integrator

Won a contract with one of the world’s 
largest airlines to migrate analytical data 
to the Microsoft Azure cloud

Announced Microsoft 
product in private preview

Successful share subscription raising 
$25m gross funds

February 2020

June 2020

March 2020

Contract worth $1m with 
a division of one of the 
world’s largest media and 
telecommunications companies

02

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

Operational and strategic highlights

• Go-to-market launch of LiveData 
Platform for Azure in Q4 2020: 

of petabyte scale data lakes to the cloud 

• Meaningful commercial momentum 

and targeting migration of >30 petabytes 

with blue chip customers and 
partners supports FY21 pipeline:

•  Microsoft’s preferred data lake migration 

of data in FY21

solution, appearing as a native Azure 

• Expanded partnerships with data 

•  Blue chip cloud migration contracts won 

service with metered billing. Delivering 

self-service data lake migration with zero 

analytics platforms Databricks and 
Snowflake:

downtime, disruption and risk

•  Microsoft has estimated a total 

•  Growing opportunity to support machine 

learning and artificial intelligence in 

addressable market of 200–300 exabytes 

the cloud

of on-premise analytical data. Targeting 

migration of >100 petabytes of data 

in FY21

• Launched LiveData Migrator on 
Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) 
Cloud and achieved Migration 
Competency status in Q3 2020:

•  Landmark success with launch customer 

GoDaddy, seamlessly migrating 500 

terabytes of live data featuring 21,000 

change operations every second – only 

possible through WANdisco’s solution 

•  Providing AWS customers, a no 

downtime, easy and efficient migration 

•  Post period end announced partnership 
with Snowflake, to automate, accelerate 

and simplify the migration of on-premises 

Hadoop analytics workloads to Snowflake’s 

data platform

• Evolution in 2021 towards consumption-
based revenue model – the standard 
for the cloud ecosystem:

•  With metered billing on Azure, revenue 

is shifting from a subscription model 

in which revenue is recognised up front, 

to a consumption-based model where 

revenue is recognised over time

with: one of the world’s largest media and 

telecommunications companies; one of 

the world’s largest airlines; a major British 

supermarket; a top three mobile operator; 

and one of the largest banks in Africa 

•  Secured a further $3m contract with 
one of the world’s largest media and 

telecommunications companies to 

migrate an initial 13PB Hadoop cluster 

to Microsoft Azure

•  Signed a global reseller agreement with 

major systems integrator Infosys focused 

on migration

•  Integrated LiveData Migrator into IBM’s 

Big Replicate to capitalise on near-term 

opportunity of enterprises migrating off 

legacy Hadoop platforms

Became the first 
independent software 
vendor (“ISV”) to achieve 
AWS Competency Status in 
the area of data migration

Go-to-market launch of LiveData 
Platform for Azure

AWS contract with one of the top 
three mobile operators for $450k

Existing relationship with 
IBM extended to integrate 
WANdisco’s LiveData 
Migrator

August 2020

October 2020

December 2020

July 2020

September 2020

November 2020

Deal worth up to $1m with 
a major British supermarket

New contract win with one 
of the world’s largest insurers

LiveData Migrator launch with  
Amazon Web Services

Announced Global Agreement  
with Infosys

LiveData Migrator launch 
on G-Cloud 12 marketplace

New AWS win with large 
financial services firm

$3m initial Azure contract with 
major US telecoms company

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

03

OverviewWANdisco at a glance

Consistent data 
everywhere

Keeping data consistent in a distributed 
environment is a massive challenge for 
enterprises. WANdisco LiveData Cloud Services 
solves the exponentially growing challenge 
of keeping unstructured data available 
across diverse IT environments regardless 
of geographic location, architecture, 
or cloud storage provider. 

Used by enterprises worldwide and endorsed by Microsoft Azure 
and Amazon Web Services for Hadoop migration and replication, 
our technology is based on a patented, high-performance coordination 
engine which uses consensus to keep Hadoop and object store data 
accessible, accurate, and consistent in different locations across any 
environment – on-premises, hybrid-cloud, multi-region and multi-cloud. 
WANdisco is the foundation for a modern cloud data strategy – a LiveData 
strategy – because it prevents data disasters, de-risks data migration 
to the cloud, and simplifies hybrid and multi-cloud data management.

WANdisco LiveData overview

Protects customers’ investment

No downtime, no outages, and no risk with 
guaranteed near-zero RTO and RPO.

Transforms IT economics

Create a bedrock for performance by fully 
utilising hardware previously reserved for 
backup and recovery.

Break through legacy constraints

Put all customers’ data to work for the 
business and innovate without worrying 
that IT investments will be left behind.

04

LiveData strategy

WANdisco makes data globally accessible 
and consistent everywhere with a LiveData 
strategy. Alleviating the challenges of siloed 
data, a LiveData strategy ensures that 
enterprise data stays accurate, accessible, 
and consistent across your global IT 
environment. With a LiveData strategy, every 
user and every application has always-available 
data, regardless of geographic location, data 
platform architecture, or cloud storage provider. 

A platform for any IT architecture

Geo-distributed data doesn’t need to slow down digital transformation

Persona

Cloud Architect

Security Manager

Data Architect

Cloud Engineer

Data Operator

Data Engineer

Solutions

MultiSite

Active 
Backup

Disaster 
Recovery

MultiCloud

Data Lake

Migration

SECURITY

DCONE

WEB UI

SDK

LiveData Platform

LiveCode

LiveData

GIT

GERRIT

SVN

LOCAL/NFS

HDFS

OBJECT STORAGE

Platform

IT assets

Ecosystem

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

05

OverviewChairman and Chief Executive’s report
David Richards, Chairman and CEO

Making significant  
progress 

2020 highlights

• Go-to-market launch of LiveData 
Platform for Azure in Q4 2020.

• Launched LiveData Migrator on 
Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) 
Cloud and achieved Migration 
Competency status in Q3 2020.

• Meaningful commercial interest and 
momentum with blue chip customers 
and partners support FY21 pipeline.

In 2020 we achieved our primary 
strategic goal of launching our 
LiveData Platform for Microsoft 
Azure as a native offering 
– becoming deeply embedded 
into the cloud fabric as Microsoft’s 
preferred data lake migration 
solution. In addition, we launched 
LiveData Migrator on AWS and 
became the only vendor to achieve 
Migration Competency status, 
positioning WANdisco as the 
global standard for cloud 
migration to AWS. These 
milestone achievements 
position WANdisco for significant 
scalable growth in FY21.

David Richards
Chairman and CEO

In 2020, we delivered on our primary strategic 
goal of launching LiveData Platform for 
Microsoft Azure, with joint go-to-market 
activity with Microsoft from October 2020, 
firmly establishing WANdisco as part of the 
global cloud fabric. A new Azure service, the 
LiveData Platform for Azure, allows customers 
to use our software as if it were a native Azure 
offering. As an Azure service, customers can 
deploy WANdisco’s LiveData products by 
selecting it from the same Azure menu 
used for native Microsoft services such as 
compute and storage, with metered billing 
added on their existing monthly Azure 
payments. No software to install, no new 
contracts to sign, no barrier to entry. 

Our LiveData Migrator product also launched 
on AWS in September 2020. AWS launch 
customer GoDaddy had a data set that was 
considered impossible to migrate to the cloud 
with a data set featuring 21,000 change 
operations every second. WANdisco was able 
to migrate GoDaddy’s target 500 terabytes 
of live data in a single scan – a landmark 
achievement for the Group and the unique 
LiveData Migrator product.

In September 2020 we signed a reseller 
contract with Infosys, a major global 
systems integrator with a large cloud 

migration practice. Our new LiveData 
Migrator product will unlock a previously 
difficult to service market for them for large, 
on-premises to cloud migrations as well as 
our LiveData Platform providing hybrid and 
inter cloud data consistency solutions.

WANdisco continued to build customer 
momentum heading into Q4 2020, 
securing a large $3m further contract 
with one of the world’s largest media 
and telecommunications companies in 
November 2020. Other significant contracts 
included major blue chip organisations 
such as a large media company, a British 
supermarket chain, and a major bank in 
the Southeastern US.

Post period end in March 2021, the Group 
completed a successful fundraising of 
$42.5m, to accelerate and strengthen the 
Group’s commercial position by building 
balance sheet strength in order to capitalise 
on future opportunities to further scale the 
business, including expand opportunities 
with other cloud vendors such as AWS and 
Google (GCP), provide capital to accelerate 
growth and pursue closer ties with Machine 
Learning and Artificial Intelligence (“ML/AI”), 
Independent Software Vendors (“ISVs”) and 
widening its System Integrator (“SI”) 

06

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

relationships; and provide capital for greater 
enablement support for the early stages of 
growth as the Group’s relationships with 
current SIs deepen. 

On 11 March, the Group also announced 
a LiveData Migrator partnership with 
Snowflake, the data cloud company, 
to automate, accelerate and simplify the 
migration of on-premises Hadoop analytics 
workloads to Snowflake’s data platform. 
The partnership opens a new distribution 
channel for WANdisco with Snowflake’s 
c.4,000 customers and significant market 
share of Fortune 500 customers. The future 
of analytical data, machine learning and 
artificial intelligence is in the cloud, building 
a medium-term opportunity for the Group 
supporting the likes of Databricks and 
Snowflake across the entire data lifecycle.

With WANdisco now deeply integrated into 
the cloud fabric, the Group is well positioned 
to scale significantly and to convert the 
pipeline of opportunities ahead. More so 
than ever following the COVID-19 pandemic, 
the cloud is where all businesses must 
operate and WANdisco now stands as the 
de facto standard for cloud migration for 
petabyte scale blue chip data sets, delivering 
self-service migration at any scale, with zero 
business disruption, zero risk and best 
time to value. WANdisco enters FY21 with 
an unparalleled solution, deeply embedded 
into the world’s largest cloud ecosystems and 
with the experience and financial platform to 
convert on a vast market opportunity.

The Group also announced its intention to 
consider the potential value creation provided 
by a US market listing, offering access to a 
greater pool of capital in the region where 
many of the Company’s investors reside, 
alongside an increased profile in the US with 

its commercial partners. While the Group 
continues to be committed to the AIM market 
which has supported WANdisco’s growth 
to date through access to capital, the scale 
of the opportunity ahead and increasing 
US concentration of both customers and 
investors provides a compelling rationale 
to pursue a potential US listing.

KPIs to map shift to consumption-
based revenue model

Group revenues have historically been typified 
by subscription contracts in which revenues 
are recognised up front. With the introduction 
of metered billing on Azure, WANdisco has 
begun a shift to a consumption-based 
model. Consumption is the true SaaS, 
with customers expecting to purchase 
on a consumption basis within the cloud 
ecosystem through metered billing. 

To effectively build consumption revenue 
streams, sales compensation must also 
be changed to incentivise the activation 
of customers and the early commitment 
of customers to build consumption through 
the year, as opposed to a single point of sale. 

A consumption-based model provides greater 
agility and the ability to scale as required and 
provides valuable data to evolve our product 
and offering. Data on how customers are using 
the product drives interaction with customer 
success much of which is automated.

This shift to a consumption model, where 
revenue is recognised over time rather than 
up front, will lead to revenues scaling over 
the year, with revenue recognised further 
into the sales cycle, metered through use.

As our business continues to evolve, the 
metrics we use to measure our success also 
need to change. To aid in mapping pipeline 

COVID-19 update

The global nature of the COVID-19 virus has 
resulted in macroeconomic uncertainty. The 
impact of COVID-19 in certain geographies 
has prompted a reassessment of credit risk 
and the realisation of certain receivables. 
Where appropriate, an estimate of the 
potential impairment of these receivables 
has been made. The impairment of these 
receivables is not material to the liquidity 
of the Group. Due to the uncertainty 
of the impact of COVID-19 and related 
governmental restrictions, management 
intends to review credit risk related to 
these impacts at each reporting date.

We expect that the launch of products 
with Microsoft and AWS will overcome 
any short-term headwinds from the 
economic uncertainty surrounding the 
impact of COVID-19. With the exception 
of the impairment of certain receivables 
discussed above, we have experienced 
minimal effects to our customer base 
and order flow, and have not reduced 
employee-based costs.

Read more on our COVID-19 
case study on page 21

progress against this changing revenue 
model, we will provide a business update in 
the short term providing new KPIs (in addition 
to the existing revenue and subscription as a 
% of revenue KPIs) including:

•  Number of customer wins

•  Notional MRR (metered plus an estimate 

of subscription revenue as MRR)

•  Retention rate (% of customers using the 
product vs. those using a year earlier)

The objective of these KPIs is to provide 
an indication of the rate of conversion of 
the cloud migration opportunity ahead, to 
account for revenues being recognised later 
in the sales cycle and financial year through 
metered consumption.

Outlook

Our cloud platform, System Integrator, 
and ISV partners have recognised the huge 
opportunity of moving Hadoop data into the 
cloud. With the changing dynamics in the 
Hadoop on-premises market, and companies 
seeking to leverage cloud economics and 
scalability, the time to capitalise on this 
opportunity is now. The creation of a native 
Azure service with our technology provides 
a platform to capitalise on that opportunity, 
taking advantage of billing and technical 
integrations. With the go-to-market launch 
of LiveData Platform for Azure, we can 
execute against the growing pipeline of 
opportunities to move data at scale into the 
cloud without an interruption to service. 

Outside of Azure, we are also seeing growing 
demand from our other cloud partners, in 
particular AWS, as the need to capitalise on 
the cloud and move on-premises workloads 
becomes a business imperative. The Board’s 
confidence in our outlook is built upon the 
convergence of the market opportunity, 
product readiness, and deepening 
commitments from our partners.

For FY21, we expect to migrate in excess of 
100PB of data to the Azure cloud (with more 
than 50 customers signed over the year) 
and greater than 30PB into the AWS Cloud. 
Combined with the flow of metered billing 
from Q4 2020 this year we expect a 
minimum revenue of $35m in FY21.

David Richards
Chairman and CEO
4 May 2021

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

07

Strategic reportOur markets

Enterprise data and application 
modernisation requires WANdisco

Business success now depends on how effectively organisations 
utilise their data. To do so companies are modernising 
their data and application architecture, and moving their 
Hadoop deployments to the cloud to take advantage of cloud 
analytics solutions like Databricks, Snowflake, Azure Synapse 
and Amazon EMR. 

In the cloud, companies can take advantage 
of inexpensive, scalable storage and 
compute platforms leveraging an OPEX 
model. Cloud service providers (“CSPs”) 
are able to spin massive compute clusters 
up or down automatically, helping 
organisations optimise costs and reduce 
the need for people with deep expertise in 
managing such deployments. CSPs have 
also enhanced their big data solutions 
providing greater functionality over native 
Hadoop offerings, and greatly simplifying 
the complexities for organisations having to 
manage their own Hadoop implementations.

While the move to the cloud and machine 
learning-enabled cloud analytics is 
making companies more competitive, 
lean and nimble, there are very few big data 
migrations that can be switched overnight 
from an on-premises to a public cloud 
platform without significant business risk. 

Migrating a petabyte scale data lake to the 
cloud with no business disruption, while 
keeping massive volumes of data consistent 
with the on-premises platform, presents 
complex technical challenges and can 
require many IT resources, resulting in 
high costs or potential project delays. 
These risks are pervasive in manual data 
migration projects and are preventing some 
organisations from executing their big data 
to cloud migration due to their fear of lost 
productivity and revenue. 

This presents a significant and unique 
opportunity for WANdisco. Only WANdisco’s 
LiveData capabilities deliver zero downtime 
during migration, zero data loss and 100% 
data consistency even while data sets are 
under active change. These capabilities 
will be essential for successful big data 
to cloud transformations.

Market trends

According to Gartner, Hadoop deployments 
in the cloud increasingly use cloud-based 
object stores; 57% of Gartner Data & 
Analytics adoption survey respondents are 
already using cloud object storage and 39% 
are planning to within the next two years. 
This trend has only been accelerated due 
to the pandemic. 

Top four reasons cited by WANdisco 
survey respondents for migrating data 
to the cloud include:

1.  Adopt scalable cloud storage

2.  Cloud analytics

3.  Disaster recovery

4.  Hybrid cloud enablement

38% of WANdisco survey respondents 
indicated they have not yet started to 
migrate data to the cloud. The #1 reason 
given was fear of lost productivity.

08

Total addressable market

We modelled to 4–6 exabytes of data 

Estimated exabytes by Microsoft of  
on-premises analytical data based  
on the market for hardware 

For every $1 to WANdisco in cloud 
services, so all cloud platforms are  
very incentivised to work with us 

$1bn–$1.5bn

200–300

~$5–$10

Uniquely positioned

•  Only WANdisco LiveData can handle 

both dimensions

•  Any data volume

•  Any amount of data change

•  Other approaches introduce risk resulting 

in failed projects

•  Assume static data and thus require 

system downtime

•  Require multiple passes of source data, 
may be impossible to catch up with all 
data changes

•  Resource intensive, time consuming 

and costly

•  Results in bad user experience

a
t
a
D
f
o
t
n
u
o
m
A

Large Scale, Static Data Sets

Large Scale, Actively Changing Data Sets

Lift & Shift/
Static Data Copy
(e.g. Transfer Devices)

Dual Ingest
(e.g. custom develop
parallel ingest)

WANdisco LiveData
Cloud Services

Lift & Shift/
Static Data Copy
(e.g. DistCp)

Free Trial

In
Incremental
(e.g. CDC, DistCp
with multiple passes)

Small Scale, Static Data Sets

Small Scale, Actively Changing Data Sets

Amount of Data Change

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

09

Strategic report 
 
 
 
Our markets continued

Use cases

 Hadoop to Cloud 

 Hybrid Cloud 

 MultiCloud 

According to Gartner, more than 

50% 

of data migration initiatives will exceed their 
budget and timeline – and potentially harm 
the business – because of flawed strategy 
and execution. 

WANdisco survey respondents indicated 
that the top-three items driving their data 
migration costs are: 

1.  Create, manage, schedule and maintain 

custom scripts 

2.  Manually bring data back into sync 

3.  Manual intervention for anticipated failures

Manual approaches are fraught with business 
risk. WANdisco’s automated approach greatly 
reduces the business risk and potential for 
budget overruns with zero downtime, zero 
data loss and 100% data consistency.

IDC estimates 

80% 

Gartner indicates 

80% 

of new application deployments will include 
a hybrid cloud component.

of respondents using public cloud are using 
more than one cloud service provider (“CSP”). 

WANdisco’s LiveData capabilities enable 
true hybrid architectures. 

Existing on-premises environments can 
be used as disaster recovery sites, and also 
continue to be used for production workloads 
along with the new cloud environments. 

WANdisco’s LiveData capabilities ensure 
data is kept consistent across all environments 
even while under active change.

Gartner recommends data and analytics 
leaders: “Do not try to restrict the use of 
multiple clouds; it will be a losing battle.”

All trends indicate that multi-cloud 
deployments will continue to become more 
prevalent, and integration across clouds will 
be essential. 

WANdisco LiveData for MultiCloud is the 
ideal solution to this challenge. It enables 
applications to access and modify data in 
mixed environment object stores (e.g. Azure 
Data Lake Storage, Amazon S3 and Google 
Cloud Platform) ensuring data is available 
and consistent across all of them.

Enabling a data-first approach for enterprise cloud adoption

Typically, we see organisations follow three stages in their big data cloud adoption. The stages promote a data-first approach to migration which 
aligns with the strategy Microsoft and others are promoting. Without the data, the application migration becomes a pointless exercise.

Non-blocking 
migration to the cloud

LiveData for 
hybrid architecture

MultiCloud

LiveData Migrator

LiveData Plane

LiveData for MultiCloud

The first stage is to move on-premises data 
to the cloud to implement a modern data 
architecture and take advantage of all the 
benefits of the cloud as described on the 
previous pages. WANdisco LiveData Migrator 
enables organisations to do so while greatly 
reducing their business risk with zero 
downtime, zero data loss and 100% data 
consistency even while data sets are under 
active change.

Once the initial data migration has taken 
place, many customers are choosing to utilise 
a hybrid architecture where both the existing 
on-premises environment and new cloud 
environment are actively used. With WANdisco’s 
LiveData capabilities organisations are able to 
ensure their data is kept consistent across the 
on-premises and cloud environments.

Although many companies are already using 
more than one CSP, most are currently using 
them for different applications and have not 
truly integrated the data across those 
environments. Gartner has pointed out that 
integration of data across clouds is a “deep 
challenge”, but that data and analytics leaders 
must prepare for the complexities. This is a 
significant long-term opportunity, and WANdisco 
LiveData for MultiCloud is the ideal solution 
enabling applications to access and modify 
data in mixed environment cloud object stores.

10

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

Case study 

GoDaddy

GoDaddy utilises an 800-node Apache 
Hadoop cluster to hold over 2.5 petabytes 
of customer-related activity and behaviour 
data. This on-premises data lake is critical 
for guiding business operations and 
determining the company’s investment 
strategies. The system is in operation 24x7. 
It can generate peak loads of more than 
100,000 file system events per second, with 
sustained twelve-hour periods processing 
an average of over 21,000 change 
operations every second.

Objective

While the on-premises data lake is business 
critical, it is ageing and running on an 
old version of Apache Hadoop. GoDaddy 
wanted to modernise the implementation by 
migrating the data to Amazon Web Services 
(“AWS”) to take advantage of the modern 
tooling and analytics capabilities available 
on AWS, and mitigating the risks and costs 
associated with maintaining the on-premises 
Hadoop cluster and the underlying hardware.

Challenge

The challenge for GoDaddy was how to 
migrate petabytes of actively changing “live” 
data when the business depends on the 
continued operation of applications in 
the cluster and access to its data. Any 
disruption to business operations would 
be unacceptable and may have prevented 
a migration from even being attempted.

Solution

GoDaddy used WANdisco’s LiveData 
Migrator to migrate data from their actively 
used cluster to AWS S3. LiveData Migrator 
enabled GoDaddy to perform their migration 
without disrupting business operation, and 
ensured that data sets were transferred 
completely, even while under active change 
in a very large and busy Hadoop environment.

Results

•  Using LiveData Migrator, GoDaddy achieved 

their initial migration goal — to migrate 500TB 
(over 8.6 million files) of the 2.5PB to AWS S3

•  Completed the migration process while 
maintaining normal business operations 
at all times

•  Reduced cost and risk of custom data 

migration development, enabling engineers 
to focus on other business-critical tasks

•  Established a new environment using AWS 
where GoDaddy plans to leverage AWS S3, 
EMR, Athena and other AWS services to 
achieve the following:

•  Lower risk by moving off current 

ageing hardware

•  Meet SLAs for critical ETL 
processing requirements

•  Create a better experience for their 

users through faster queries

•  Greater agility by putting more data 
and flexible compute in the hands 
of data consumers

•  Improved operational efficiency by 
alleviating the burden of managing 
the large and complex on-premises 
hardware and software infrastructure

At GoDaddy, deep technical knowledge 
is in our DNA, and we often build 
applications in house to support growth. 
In the use case of a Hadoop to Amazon 
S3 data migration and replication, we 
found WANdisco’s LiveData Migrator to 
be the optimal approach to deliver the 
best time to value, rather than running 
a more time-consuming and costly 
manual migration project internally.

Wayne Peacock
Chief Data and Analytics Officer, GoDaddy

11

Our business model

Secured strong 
platform for growth

Our foundational technology ensures that an 
organisation’s data is always available, always 
accurate and always protected – wherever 
it is located and at any scale.

Our strengths

Our business

WANdisco LiveData

WANdisco enables a LiveData 
strategy, which ensures data stays 
accurate and consistent across all 
business application environments, 
regardless of geographic location, 
data platform architecture or 
cloud storage provider.

Our DConE 
technology

Our game-changing, patented 
DConE technology, used in 
WANdisco LiveData Plane and our 
other products, uses consensus 
to keep unstructured data 
accessible, accurate and 
consistent in different 
locations.

Our key strengths

EXPERIENCED 
WORLD-CLASS 
LEADERSHIP  
TEAM

SIGNIFICANT  
SALES 
RELATIONSHIPS

Our strategy

We are accelerating the speed to 
market of solutions co-developed 
with our partners and exploring how 
our technology can address 
challenges in new technologies 
such as blockchain.

Talented people
Our development team has strong 
domain experience and knowledge in 
algorithm design and information 
network security.

Innovative technology
The WANdisco LiveData platform is 
built on unique, patented technology.

Strong partnerships
We have developed a strong network 
of partnerships to facilitate sales 
generation through our OEM partners 
and co-sell arrangements.

Significant opportunity
Significant TAM.

Read about our partnerships 
from page 14

Read more about our 
markets from page 8

12

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

Embed and enable

We embed WANdisco technology into 
cloud fabric to become de-facto 
standard for data migration.

STRONG 
INTELLECTUAL 
PROPERTY

GLOBAL 
CUSTOMER  
BASE

Provide insight

We create solutions and partnerships 
that facilitate the use of data for  
cloud analytics.

Creating value

For customers

The ability to put all their data to 
work for their business all the time, 
at any scale. 

$9.0m

investment in new technology 

For employees

The growth of the business has 
provided many opportunities for existing 
and new colleagues and we continue to 
invest in developing and retaining our 
people and strengthening the team. 

180

employees

For partners

We have an expanding network of 
partners and system integrators, all 
of which are dedicated to meeting 
the needs of our customers. 

28

partners and system integrators

Reinvestment

We invest in our business; 
during 2020 areas of investment 
included channel strategy 
and product development.

Read more about our KPIs 
on page 20

Read more about our 
strategy from page 16

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

13

Strategic reportOur partnerships and technology

Deepening 
partnerships

Together with our partners, we are growing, innovating and investing in ways to help 
customers transform their businesses with WANdisco solutions. In 2020 we made significant 
investments in our partner ecosystem to help capture the multi-billion Hadoop to cloud 
migration market, moving the Company from 10% to over 50% revenue with partners.

To enable a partner-first strategy, we focused on three areas:

1

 Launching an easy-to-use, turnkey 
product in LiveData Migrator and 
LiveData Migrator for Azure: LiveData 
Migrator for Azure is a first of its kind 
native Azure service, co-developed 
with Microsoft, which can be deployed 
simultaneously with other Azure 
services with an equivalent user 
experience. LiveData Migrator on AWS 
is the only ISV to achieve migration 
competency for Hadoop to AWS.

2

 WANdisco launched the LiveData 
Partner Network: This state of the art 
partner platform built with simplicity 
and ease of use as its cornerstone was 
launched in October 2020. We focused 
on creating a world-class program built 
on a leading PRM system that simplifies 
contracting and onboarding processes for 
our partners. We have dozens of partners 
engaged, accessing the portal for free 
training and certification, enablement 
resources, marketing campaigns, and 
of course deal registration.

3

 Finally we’ve empowered a 
Channel-first mentality throughout 
the organisation: We’ve changed the 
mind-set of our field from a “direct” 
to a “channel” focus. This was 
driven from the Boardroom across 
the organisation.

Microsoft 

AWS

Databricks

About the partnership

About the partnership

About the partnership

WANdisco’s partnership with Microsoft 
helps customers migrate data to the 
Microsoft Azure cloud rapidly and easily, 
and exploit the power and capabilities of 
the Microsoft Azure environment.

WANdisco helps customers quickly 
leverage the benefits and capabilities 
of AWS, with proven data migration 
and analytics to AWS, S3, EMR, Athena, 
Snowflake, and Databricks. 

The combination of WANdisco LiveData 
Migrator and Databricks Delta Lake 
accelerates cloud adoption and 
modernises big data analytics. 

2020 update

•  Microsoft Gold Partner

•  Go-to-market launch of LiveData 

Migrator for Azure (“LDMA”). LDMA 
is a core Azure service, leveraging the 
same security, billing, and experience 
as other native Azure services

•  Identified as the preferred solution 
for Hadoop migrations to Azure

2020 update

•  Advanced tier ISV Migration 

competency partner

2020 update

•  LiveAnalytics for both Azure and AWS, 
an integrated solution with Databricks

•  Part of the Migration Acceleration 

•  LiveDeltaLake for Databricks across 

Program (“MAP”) for Storage

multiple cloud environments

•  Part of the EMR Migration Program 

(“EMAP”)

•  Part of the Migration Acceleration 

Program

•  Joint GTM, field enablement, and 
account mapping with Databricks 
Business Development, Sales, and 
Marketing teams

14

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

 
 
 
System integrators and distributors

Our turnkey solutions and comprehensive LiveData Partner Network, both launched 
in 2020, make it easy for partners to engage with WANdisco. WANdisco works with 
consulting and System Integrator (“SI”) partners which provide expertise, technology 
skills and solutions that better enable customer success. Our partners can quickly 
move to market with WANdisco due to their existing Hadoop experience and 
understanding of the needs of the Hadoop community. WANdisco partners 
synergistically have existing relationships with clients and client providers to which 
they provide cloud services such as cloud-scale analytics, digital transformation 
initiatives, big data migration, backup, disaster recovery and high availability. 

2020 update

•  Focus on a handful of key strategic SIs to build joint service offerings, launch joint GTM activities, and closely align our sales, 

post-sales, and customer success teams

•  Support regional and niche partners in the broader partner ecosystem through our partner portal. In 2020 over two dozen 

Partner companies leveraged the free self-service enablement, training and marketing support of the LiveData Partner Network 
(launched in October 2020)

•  Simplified onboarding, contracting processes for all partners

Recruit

Ready

Engage

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

15

Strategic reportOur strategy

Focusing and delivering 
on our strategic initiatives

Strategic initiative

Importance

2020 achievements

1

Deepening partner 
relationships

The channel partnerships we have 
established are significant as:

•  they provide WANdisco with access to vast 
sales teams, adding significant global and 
horizontal market reach;

•  they allow us to drive more revenue at 

lower cost; and

•  their endorsement of WANdisco LiveData 
strengthens our brand and our portfolio 
of partners.

We continue to seek opportunities to expand 
our sales channels.

•  Improved partner status with Microsoft 

by embedding LiveData Platform in Azure 
with go-to-market launch;

•  The first independent software vendor 
to achieve AWS Competency Status in 
the area of data migration; 

•  Global reseller agreement with Infosys; 

•  LiveData Migrator launch on G-Cloud 12 

marketplace; and

•  Existing relationship with IBM extended 

to integrate WANdisco’s LiveData Migrator 
into IBM’s Big Replicate solution.

2

Continued  
technology development

3

People  
development

WANdisco’s technology solves critical data 
management challenges across cloud 
computing and Big Data for enterprise 
customers and their service providers. 

Our product is a platform for any IT 
architecture.

We identify development projects that will 
enhance our technology and increase its 
ease of use and functionality for customers 
and end users, and we listen to existing 
customers and potential customers and our 
channel partners for future requirements.

We want to provide an environment where 
we attract, retain, develop and enable all our 
people to demonstrate, grow and apply their 
capabilities, offering opportunities for 
everyone to reach their potential.

•  Microsoft Azure LiveData Platform launch.

•  Enhanced our management team with 

several key senior hires in marketing, sales, 
engineering and customer success; 

•  Provided new opportunities internally 

resulting in a number of internal job moves 
and promotions; and 

•  Enhanced our benefits package to 

employees globally. 

16

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

   
KPI link:

1

2

3

Revenue

Cash overheads

Subscription as a % of revenue

Priorities for 2021

Link to KPIs

Summary of 2020 achievements

1

2

3

Overview

•  Focus on new partner channel and 

their development; 

•  Expand channel account manager 

model; and 

•  Expand partner channel further.

•  Capitalise on Azure LiveData Platform 

opportunity; and 

•  New products launched to expand 

addressable market.

1

•  Continue to develop our team with internal 

job moves and promotions; and 

•  Enhance our team with quality 

new external hires.

1

2

Read about how we manage  
risk from page 22

Find our KPIs on page 20

In 2020, WANdisco announced a milestone with 
over 150 LiveData customers and 200 petabytes 
of data under management, the equivalent of all 
printed material that has ever been produced. 
WANdisco’s LiveData Migrator became the only 
hands-off, automated data lake migration service 
to allow on-premises applications to continue to 
operate while migrating data under active change. 
Available to AWS and Google Cloud Platform 
customers and as a native turnkey service in 
Microsoft Azure, WANdisco shifted to a channel-
first sales model with the launch of its LiveData 
Partner Network. The exabyte-scale Hadoop to 
cloud migration opportunity represents more than 
100 exabytes of data and thus a multi-billion dollar 
total addressable market. 

2020 demonstrated that cloud plays a vital role 
in business, and we look forward to continuing to 
give customers the complete freedom to choose 
where their data lives within their enterprises’ 
IT infrastructure, free from technological or cost 
constraints. As we move into 2021 with a solid 
foundation and expanded sources of revenue, 
WANdisco seeks to extend its lead within the 
cloud migration and replication market with an 
exciting product roadmap, a world-class team 
and strategic partnerships.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

17

Strategic reportOur strategy continued

Continuing to invest in 
developing our strategy

New partners and customers

Successful partnerships with leading cloud providers

2020 saw substantial customer and partner growth for WANdisco 
with the signing of multiple, million-plus dollar deals that have 
expanded customer reach into new industries. Recent customers 
include one of the largest global airlines, a worldwide retail franchise, 
a world leader in telecommunications, a leading media conglomerate 
and a major UK-based supermarket chain among others.

WANdisco significantly expanded its market reach with its global 
reseller agreement with Infosys to de-risk and accelerate data lake 
migration to the cloud. Leveraging Infosys’ vast experience and 
cloud capabilities, WANdisco will help enterprises across the globe 
migrate their data lakes to major public clouds including Amazon 
Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. 

Using WANdisco LiveData Migrator, GoDaddy achieved their initial 
goal to migrate 500TB to AWS S3 in 45 days and to take advantage 
of the cloud provider’s modern tooling and analytics capabilities. 
On average, GoDaddy processed over 21,000 change operations per 
second with peaks of over 100,000 change operations per second 
while normal business operations continued uninterrupted, leaving 
engineers to focus on other business-critical projects like refactoring 
and moving applications to the cloud. 

In 2020, WANdisco deepened its relationship with Microsoft as 
its LiveData Platform became the first natively integrated service 
in the Azure Customer Portal. Since its preview began in June 2020, 
the collaboration between Microsoft and WANdisco has drawn 
numerous enterprises who have registered for the service within 
the Azure Portal, offering positive feedback on its efficiency and 
operation. As part of the Microsoft Hadoop Migration Accelerator 
program with Databricks, LiveData Migrator for Azure is a fully 
operational Azure-nature service and is Microsoft’s recommended 
Hadoop to Azure migration platform. 

New channel program

Through the new WANdisco LiveData Partner Network portal, cloud 
service providers, consulting partners, system integrators, ISVs, 
resellers, and others can leverage WANdisco’s LiveData Cloud 
Services to enable Hadoop migrations at any scale, in addition to a 
robust set of new sales, marketing, training, certification and support 
resources to unlock new revenue streams. WANdisco envisions that 
the partner network will be its biggest growth driver for the Company 
in 2021, enabling it to quickly expand and scale its business globally. 
Through these new partnerships, WANdisco will help partners grow 
their business while providing customers with the tools to accelerate 
their data and application modernisation plans.

WANdisco provided a solution that addressed our cloud 
migration challenges. This included managing the technical 
debt inherited by our ageing software and hardware, handling 
the scale of data that we accumulated over the years, 
and doing so without impacting our business continuity. 
We couldn’t afford any downtime during the migration 
process. With WANdisco and AWS, we were able to get 
up and running in weeks so we could begin experimenting 
with the new cloud environment very quickly.

Jeremy Zogg
Senior Director of Engineering, GoDaddy

We see this as a significant growth area. Hadoop is failing 
to meet a lot of the early expectations. WANdisco is an 
accelerating technology that we see the value in using 
to help clients who are currently struggling with – or not 
getting value out of – Hadoop, to move those workloads 
they are spending billions on.

Alan Grogan
Executive leader for data platform modernisation 
at Avanade Europe

18

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

LiveData Migrator

Product innovation

Product protection: safeguarding our IP

WANdisco’s technology continues to be unrivalled in the marketplace. 
Until we developed WANdisco LiveData Plane, there was no practical 
or affordable way for companies to keep mass-scale real-time data 
consistently and continuously replicated across distance.

Our IP – as embodied in WANdisco’s DConE and the products we 
have built from this – is well protected. To date, we have filed more 
than 53 patents, and 29 have been granted already. We also have 
a head start of more than 15 years over any potential competition. 
This early foothold, and the ongoing improvements we are making 
from experience with real-world applications of our technology at 
massive scale, continue to ensure our market advantage.

Product plans for 2021 and beyond

Our product strategy will continue to evolve in line with our partner 
sales strategy, with further enhancements designed to capitalise on 
the cross-industry opportunities and high-growth use cases we have 
identified. Our main focus for 2021 will be to accelerate the speed 
to market of solutions co-developed with or optimised for our 
strategic partners.

WANdisco is changing the future of migration with the 2020 launch 
of LiveData Migrator. The Company’s automated, self-service 
solution democratises cloud data migration at any scale by enabling 
companies to start migrating Hadoop data from on-premises to 
Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) or Google Cloud Platform within 
minutes, even while the source data sets are under active use. With 
LiveData Migrator, businesses can migrate HDFS data without the 
expertise of engineers or other consultants. The platform enables 
enterprises to operate without any production system downtime or 
business disruption while ensuring the migration is complete and 
continuous, and any ongoing data changes are replicated to the 
target cloud environment. 

WANdisco gained designation as an Advanced Technology Partner 
in the AWS Partner Network (“APN”) and achieved AWS Migration 
Competency status with the release of LiveData Migrator. The only 
ISV certified in the new Workload Mobility for Data Migration, Data 
Lake Migration category, WANdisco collaborated with AWS to define 
the requirements to cover different use cases, including Hadoop, 
storage and database data migration, and mainframe data integration.

WANdisco LiveData Migrator is as close to a silver bullet 
as you can find for Hadoop to cloud migrations.

Merv Adrian
Vice President of Data and Analytics, Gartner

Awards

WANdisco’s technological accomplishments were recognised within 
three awards in 2020. It was a finalist for the Stratus Awards in the 
Cloud Computing category, organised by the Business Intelligence 
Group, and shortlisted for the Cloud Awards within the category of 
Best Cloud Migration or Systems Integration Solution. WANdisco 
was also highly commended at the UK IT Awards for Cloud 
Innovation Provider of the Year in November 2020.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

19

Strategic reportKey performance indicators (“KPIs”)

Our KPIs reflect our financial 
performance in 2020

Commentary on the actual performance of the Group against each of these KPIs is set out in the Chairman and Chief Executive’s report 
and the Financial review.

Strategy link:

Revenue ($m) 

Cash overheads ($m) 

Subscription as a % 
of revenue

1

Deepening partner relationships

$10.5m

$36.9m

87%

2

Continued technology development

3

People development

20

19

18

17

16

10.5

11.4

16.2

17.0

19.6

20

19

18

17

16

36.9

31.7

29.8

20

19

18

87

69

60

24.5

23.4

New KPIs for 2021

As our business continues 
to evolve, the metrics 
we use to measure our 
success also need to 
change. For 2021, we 
expect to provide additional 
metrics that best represent 
our business progress. 
These KPIs include the 
number of customer wins, 
notional MRR (metered plus 
an estimate of subscription 
revenue as MRR) and 
retention rate (% of customers 
using the product vs. those 
using a year earlier).

Link to strategy 

Link to strategy 

Link to strategy 

1

2

3

1

2

3

1

2

3

Definition and calculation

Definition and calculation

Definition and calculation

Total of all revenue streams 
generated by the Group. 

Why each KPI is important 
for measuring progress

Measures the Group’s revenue 
which is an indicator of the 
Group’s overall size and 
complexity and progress 
of strategic initiatives.

Performance in 2020

Revenue was lower in 2020, 
reflecting an increased shift 
to cloud-based revenues with 
recurring annual revenues and 
some deals that were delayed 
to future years. 

The decrease in revenue 
included strong renewals and 
new contract growth offset by 
some deals that were delayed 
into a future period. 

Operating expenses adjusted 
for: depreciation, amortisation, 
capitalisation of development 
expenditure and equity-settled 
share-based payment. 

Why each KPI is important 
for measuring progress

Key measure of the Group’s cost 
base, excluding the effects of 
certain non-operational/ 
non-cash items.

Performance in 2020

Cash overheads increased in the 
year as we continued to make 
investments in go-to-market 
resources and engineering. 
In addition, we invested in our 
strategic partnerships. 

Total subscription revenue (term 
licences and maintenance and 
support) as a % of total revenue. 

Why each KPI is important 
for measuring progress

This KPI was introduced in 2019 
to measure the shift to cloud-
based revenues.

Performance in 2020

Subscription revenue increased 
as a % of sales due to our 
ongoing shift towards 
cloud-based revenue, which 
is typically annual recurring in 
nature. We expect this trend to 
continue in future periods. 

20

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

All text to be supplied 
 
 
 
 
 
Case study 

Korea Bioinformation 
Center (“KOBIC”)

Objective

Results

The KOBIC collects and manages bio-research 
resource information and genomic information. 
In 2020 they began to collect COVID-19 
genome data produced worldwide. KOBIC 
also operates Bio-Express, a large-scale 
Genomic Data Analysis Cloud service, 
which they provide for free to bio-engineering 
researchers at hospitals, businesses, 
universities and research institutes in Korea.

Challenge

Bio-Express has high-performance data 
analysis requirements, but the time needed 
to replicate the large volume of data between 
their Hadoop Distributed File System (“HDFS”) 
and their Linux/Unix-based Lustre file system 
was lengthy and impacted Bio-Express 
response times. KOBIC needed a way to reduce 
the time required to replicate data and improve 
the overall system performance.

Solution

In early 2020 WANdisco announced free 
access to their suite of cloud migration 
and big data tools, for teams involved in 
developing potential treatments and cures 
for the COVID-19 pandemic. WANdisco 
provided their LiveData Plane software 
along with technical resources free of 
charge to KOBIC to assist the organisation 
in enhancing its architecture, developing 
products, and introducing WANdisco’s 
automated replication technology into 
KOBIC’s workflow.

Leveraging WANdisco LiveData Plane 
the Bio-Express next-generation service 
was able to:

•  Replicate files 13 times faster

•  Shorten average analysis time of 

Bio-Express services by greater than 30%

•  Provide users with faster response times 
and the ability to perform their research 
with greater efficiency

KOBIC uses the WANdisco LiveData 
Platform to automate file transfer 
13 times faster in both directions 
between Hadoop-based Big Data 
Analysis Program Execution Cluster 
(HDFS) and Linux-based Genomic 
Analysis Program Execution Cluster 
(Lustre). We were able to reduce the 
overall average time to analyse user 
genomic data of Bio-Express service 
by more than 30%.

Kun-Hwan Ko
Researcher at KOBIC’s Computational 
Development Team

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

21
21

Strategic reportAll text to be suppliedRisks

Assessing and actively 
managing our risks

The Group’s operations 
expose it to a variety of risks.

Effective risk management aids decision 
making, underpins the delivery of the 
Group’s strategy and objectives, and helps 
to ensure that the risks the Group takes are 
adequately assessed and actively managed.

The Group regularly monitors its key risks 
and reviews its management processes and 
systems to ensure that they are effective 
and consistent with good practice. The 
Board is ultimately responsible for the 
Group’s risk management.

The risk management process involves the 
identification and prioritisation of key risks, 
together with appropriate controls and plans 
for mitigation, which are then reported to the 
Board. As with all businesses, the Group is 
affected by a number of risks and uncertainties, 
some of which are beyond our control.

The table opposite shows the principal 
risks and uncertainties which could have 
a material adverse impact on the Group.

This is not an exhaustive list and there 
may be risks and uncertainties of which the 
Board is not aware, or which are believed to 
be immaterial, which could have an adverse 
effect on the Group. 

Risk management framework

Board

Leadership of risk management, sets strategic objectives 
and risk appetite and monitors performance

Accountable for the effectiveness of the Group’s internal 
control and risk management processes

Read about corporate governance from page 37

Audit Committee

Delegated responsibility from the Board to oversee risk management and internal controls

Oversees the effectiveness of the Group’s internal control 
and risk management processes

Monitors the independence and expertise of the external auditor

Find the Audit Committee report from page 42

Executive Directors

Communicate and disseminate risk policies

Support and help management to assess risk

Encourage open communication on risk matters

Assess materiality of risks in the context of the whole Group 
and monitor mitigation and controls

Find the Board of Directors from page 32

22

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

 
 
    
Risk change

No change 

Risk change

Reduced  

People  1   2   3

Risk description

Potential impact

Risk mitigation

This may in turn impact 
our ability to attract 
and retain key talent, 
affecting our 
achievement of 
strategic objectives 
and performance 
milestones. 

Our human resources function oversees 
employee communications to ensure, given 
our rapidly developing markets, employees’ 
understanding of our strategic direction enables 
them to make meaningful contributions to the 
achievement of our goals. 

Stock-based compensation has continued to be 
an important component of retaining, motivating 
and attracting key talent. 

Our future success depends on retention of 
senior management and key technical 
personnel. Whilst much of our proprietary 
knowledge is documented, our technical 
experts contribute valuable skills and 
knowledge and, despite contractual 
confidentiality agreements, there can be no 
guarantee that those individuals will not in 
the future join competitors or establish 
themselves in competition. 

During the year the headcount increased 
from 162 to 180. This movement was 
a targeted increase in the R&D, sales, 
marketing and customer support teams to 
provide investment in our product and sales 
channel strategy. It is essential that we retain 
and motivate our workforce and attract the 
right talent in the case of any replacement 
and new hires in the future. 

Financing  1   2   3

Risk description

Potential impact

Risk mitigation

Our product, LiveData Plane, addresses 
a still-emerging market in which we have 
limited forward visibility, and we continued 
to be a loss-making business in 2020. 

This could adversely 
impact our ability to 
fund investment in our 
business to achieve 
our strategic goals. 

Our own and partner sales pipelines continue to 
grow, and we have continued to build on the OEM 
relationship established with IBM during 2016 and 
expanded other partnerships, including Microsoft 
during 2020. Operating costs increased during 
the year due to some targeted investment in R&D, 
sales, marketing and customer support teams. 
We have prepared a detailed budget and forecasts 
of the Group’s expected performance over a 
period covering at least the next twelve months 
from the date of the approval of these financial 
statements. As well as modelling the realisation 
of the sales pipeline, these forecasts also cover 
several scenarios. During the year there was a 
share subscription for $24.9m of gross proceeds. 
Also, following the end of the year there was a 
share raise for $42.5m of gross proceeds. We 
maintain close relationships with our principal 
and potential providers of finance and continue 
to review the need for additional or alternative 
funding. See also Note 2(b). 

Strategy link:

1

Deepening partner relationships

2

Continued technology development

3

People development

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

23

Strategic report 
Risks continued

Competition  1   2   3

Risk description

Potential impact

Risk mitigation

There can be no guarantee that competitors 
will not develop superior products. 
Competitors may have or develop greater 
financial, marketing or technical resources, 
enabling them to successfully develop 
and market competing products. As the 
open-source software on which we depend 
is licensed for free, our ability to sell 
value-added products may be limited by 
potential customers opting to rely purely 
on the underlying open-source software, 
together with any free extensions that 
might be developed to address the same 
challenges that our software resolves.

This could adversely 
impact market share, 
growth, revenue, margin 
and overall profitability.

We protect our intellectual property by securing 
patents whenever possible. To date, we have filed 
more than 53 patents, 29 of which have been 
granted. We continue to dedicate significant 
resource to the constant enhancement of our 
core intellectual property.

Senior management devotes considerable time 
and resource to monitoring product releases 
by potential competitors in the data replication 
software market. During the year, we have 
continued to invest in our technologies and 
there were further new releases of our products.

Risk change

No change 

Channel partner engagement  1   2   3

Risk description

Potential impact

Risk mitigation

We are in partnership with an array of 
vendors that offer on-premises and 
cloud solutions. 

Some of these partnerships are relatively 
new business relationships. There is a risk 
that we mismanage these relationships or 
that partners decide not to devote 
significant sales or product integration 
resource to our offerings.

This could adversely 
impact our partner 
relationships and the 
success of these 
relationships.

We have established a customer success team 
who are focused on supporting our customers 
and partners, developing new partner 
relationships and creating new commercial 
propositions that derive long-term value from 
these relationships.

Resource allocation and operational execution  1   2   3

Risk description

Potential impact

Risk mitigation

We address a significant and rapidly growing 
market, but, as a small company, we have 
limited people and capital resources. Over 
time it will be essential to keep adding to 
and refreshing this resource, but always it 
will remain essential that we ensure that 
resource is effectively directed to addressing 
and delivering on our strategic goals.

This could result in the 
balance of resources 
not being focused on 
the right strategic goals.

We have a business planning process which 
aims to ensure the investments we make and the 
allocation of existing resource are aligned with our 
strategic goals, which in turn are responsive to the 
evolution of our marketplace. 

We continued to improve internal financial 
reporting and cost control processes. These 
financial reports are regularly monitored by 
senior management and the Board.

Risk change

No change 

Risk change

No change 

Strategy link:

1

Deepening partner relationships

2

Continued technology development

3

People development

24

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

Products  1   2   3

Risk description

Potential impact

Risk mitigation

Risk change

The software on which our products is based 
is complex and the products may contain 
undetected defects which may be discovered 
after first introduction. Such defects could 
damage the Group’s reputation and reduce 
revenue from subscription renewals and 
extensions. Many of our products are 
designed for use with open-source software, 
whose development, by the open-source 
community, we do not solely control. 
Changes to its structure and development 
path may impair the effectiveness of our 
products. Regulation of data transfer is 
rapidly evolving and additional regulations 
concerning user privacy, content liability, 
data encryption and copyright protection 
may reduce the value added by our products. 

Sales  1   2   3

If we fail to develop and 
manage a prioritised 
strategy for our 
products that delivers 
against customer and 
partner needs, there 
is a financial risk that 
customers will go 
elsewhere. 

No change 

We have invested in quality control 
processes and training within our 
engineering team. We have a 
dedicated team committing code 
to relevant open-source tools to 
ensure our products interact well 
with open-source components and 
to monitor evolving open-source 
projects to which we could potentially 
add commercial value. Our product 
roadmap is based on requirements 
expressed by customers and 
partners with whom we are pursuing 
sales opportunities. Our product 
managers are mandated to propose 
roadmap alterations if regulations 
render our intended features either 
more or less relevant.

Risk description

Potential impact

Risk mitigation

Risk change

Any economic downturn may have an adverse 
effect on the funds available for customers   
invest in our products. Increasing budget 
scrutiny may periodically extend sales cycles, 
from customers’ evaluations through to 
commencement of subscription contracts. 
Variability of sales cycles across different 
sizes and types of customer may bring 
volatility to our quarterly results. Any new 
sales executives joining the business, in a 
rapidly changing marketplace, may take 
longer than expected to reach full productivity 
in concluding sales transactions. 

COVID-19  1   2   3

This could adversely 
impact our achievement 
of our revenue goals 
and expansion of our 
customer base and 
use cases. 

No change 

Our products enable significant 
savings on data storage and 
processing and, therefore, demand 
should be relatively insensitive to 
economic conditions. Our strategy is 
oriented to generating a broad-based 
set of sales opportunities, across 
regions, industries, sizes of customer 
and technology use cases. We have 
invested in senior management and 
systems to manage the completion 
of sales engagement in an efficient 
and commercially beneficial manner. 

Risk description

Potential impact

Risk mitigation

Risk change

The COVID-19 pandemic was declared 
a global health emergency by the World 
Health Organization on 31 January 2020. 
The worldwide spread of COVID-19 has 
resulted in public health responses in 
affected regions, including travel bans and 
restrictions, social distancing requirements 
and shelter-in-place orders. 

Global slowdown of 
economic activity could 
negatively impact our 
business, operations 
and financial 
performance. 

Having employees work remotely, 
cancelling all non-essential employee 
travel, and cancelling, postponing 
or holding virtually events and 
meetings. Strict review of non-
essential expenses and cash flow. 

In June 2020, post the start of the 
pandemic there was a successful 
share subscription for gross 
proceeds of $24.9m.

Also, following the end of the year 
there was a share raise for $42.5m 
of gross proceeds as referred to 
in the Financing risk on page 23.

Reduced 

This was a new risk last year, 
but since then the employees 
have continued to successfully 
operate remotely.

The severity, magnitude and 
duration of the COVID-19 
pandemic, the public health 
responses and the economic 
consequences are uncertain, 
rapidly changing and difficult 
to predict, and the pandemic’s 
impact on our operations and 
financial performance, as well 
as its impact on our ability to 
successfully execute our business 
strategies and initiatives, remains 
uncertain and difficult to predict. 

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

25

Strategic report 
 
 
Financial review
Erik Miller, Chief Financial Officer

Significant progress 
with partners 

2020 highlights

• Targeted increases in expenditure 

to support our channel and 
product development. 

• Successfully raised $24.9m from 

existing shareholders during 2020 
and $42.5m following the year end.

Significant commercial 
progress with Microsoft 
Azure and AWS partnerships 
underpins the Board’s 
confidence in our strategy 
and product focus.

Erik Miller
Chief Financial Officer

Revenue for the year ended 31 December 
2020 was $10.5m (2019: $16.2m). 

Deferred revenue from sales booked during 
2020 and in previous years, and not yet 
recognised as revenue, is $3.8m at 
31 December 2020; at 31 December 2019 
this stood at $3.8m. Our deferred revenue 
represents future revenue from new and 
renewed contracts, many of them spanning 
multiple years.

Adjusted EBITDA loss2 was $22.2m 
(2019: $11.7m), due primarily to the reduction 
in revenue and continued investments in 
the business.

Revenue

Revenue was $10.5m (2019: $16.2m), 
reflecting the ongoing change in revenue 
mix between our legacy business and our 
big data business as well as an increasing 
shift to cloud-based revenues with recurring 
annual revenues, away from perpetual, 
on-premises based revenue. Some deals 
were delayed into future years, as potential 
customers were assessing cloud-based 
strategies for data management and 

analytics, and comparing the availability of 
our stand-alone products vs. the launch of 
our cloud native service on Azure in October 
2020. However, our big data revenue in 2020 
grew 18% over 2019 and some larger 
Application Lifecycle Management (“ALM”) 
deals in 2019 did not repeat in 2020.

42% of revenues came from three new 
customers during the year, with a large 
media and telecommunication company, 
its analytics subsidiary and a large British 
supermarket chain adopting our big data 
solutions with the majority of this revenue 
based on multi-year subscription agreements. 
In 2019 the top three customers represented 
43% of revenues, with the majority relating 
to our ALM business.

Contract wins continue to exhibit variability 
in the timing of their completion. 

Operating costs 
Cash overheads1 increased in the year 
as we made investments in go-to-market 
resources and engineering, rising to 
$36.9m from $31.7m in 2019. 

26

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

Subsequent events

After the year end, on 10 March 2021 the Group 
announced the subscription of 6,885,572 
new ordinary shares of 10 pence each in 
the Company by existing shareholders at 
a price of 446 pence (a discount of 0.4% 
on the closing share price on 9 March 2021), 
raising gross proceeds of $42.5m. The 
proceeds will be used to support our 
relationships with strategic partners 
and provide growth working capital.

As at 30 April 2021 the Group had cash 
reserves of $55.3m. 

Whilst the medium and long-term impact 
of COVID-19 is still uncertain, we are moving 
forward this year with continued business 
momentum as evidenced by our go-to-market 
launch of LiveData Platform with Microsoft 
announced in October 2020. Our cloud 
partners continue to see an acceleration 
of business operations moving to the cloud 
since the beginning of the pandemic and 
the business continues to be aligned to this 
trend. Hence management expects that the 
potential of the agreement with Microsoft 
will overcome any short-term headwinds 
from the economic uncertainty surrounding 
the impact of COVID-19.

Erik Miller
Chief Financial Officer
4 May 2021

1   Operating expenses adjusted for: depreciation, 
amortisation, capitalisation of development 
expenditure and equity-settled share-based 
payment. See Note 9 for a reconciliation. 

2   Operating loss adjusted for: depreciation, 

amortisation and equity-settled share-based 
payment. See Note 9 for a reconciliation.

Product development expenditure 
capitalised was $5.2m in the year 
(2019: $5.1m). All of this expenditure was 
associated with new product features.

Our headcount was 180 as at 31 December 
2020 (31 December 2019: 162). Headcount 
increases in the year were principally in 
engineering and sales and marketing as 
we added capacity to service our new and 
expanded channel partner relationships 
and develop new cloud-focused products.

Profit and loss
Adjusted EBITDA2 loss for the year was 
$22.2m (2019: $11.7m).

The loss after tax for the year increased 
to $34.3m (2019: $28.3m), as a result of 
the lower revenue and increased overheads 
and partially offset by a lower share-based 
payment charge. The finance loss of $1.8m 
(2019: $2.0m loss), reported in finance 
costs, arose from the retranslation of 
intercompany balances at 31 December 
2020, reflecting the increase in sterling 
against the US dollar. The impact of FX rates 
changes on the financial statements should 
be restricted to the retranslation of US dollar 
denominated intercompany loans, as 
opposed to the operating activities of the 
business. A translation gain arising on the 
net assets of overseas subsidiaries reported 
in reserves results in a minimal impact on 
the Group net assets.

Balance sheet and cash flow

Trade and other receivables at 
31 December 2020 were $10.1m 
(31 December 2019: $8.5m). This includes 
$5.3m of trade receivables (31 December 2019: 
$2.8m) and $4.8m related to non-trade 
receivables (31 December 2019: $5.7m). 
The increase in trade receivables was due 
primarily to the timing of revenues during 
the year, which predominantly occurred 
in the fourth quarter.

Net consumption of cash was $24.2m 
before financing (2019: $19.4m), resulting 
in a closing cash balance of $21.0m at 
31 December 2020. The consumption of 
cash was due primarily to lower revenues 
and a modest increase in cash overheads. 
At 31 December 2020, we had drawings 
under our revolving credit facility with 
Silicon Valley Bank of $0.6m.

On 12 June 2020 the Group announced 
a placing for the subscription of 3,100,000 
new ordinary shares of 10 pence each in 
the Company at a price of 650 pence, 
raising gross proceeds of $24.9m.

Revenue ($m)

$10.5m

20

19

18

17

16

10.5

11.4

16.2

17.0

19.6

Cash overheads ($m)¹

$36.9m

20

19

18

17

16

36.9

31.7

29.8

24.5

23.4

Adjusted EBITDA ($m)²

$(22.2)m

(22.2)

20

19

18

17

16

(11.7)

(9.4)

(0.6)

(7.5)

Statutory loss for the year ($m)

$(34.3)m

(34.3)

(28.3)

20

19

18

17

16

(19.7)

(13.5)

(9.3)

Cash ($m)

$21.0m

20

19

18

17

16

10.8

7.6

21.0

23.4

27.4

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

27

Strategic reportSustainability

We are proud of 
our wealth of talent

WANdisco prides itself on its wealth of talent and 
its retention record. This is important given the 
competition for good software engineers. We have 
a strong track record of keeping people challenged, 
motivated and enthused by the complex scenarios 
our technology addresses.

Our priorities

The Group recognises that, although its primary responsibility is to its shareholders, it also has responsibilities towards its employees, 
customers, partners, suppliers and also, ultimately, those consumers who benefit from its products, the broader public and the environment.

Our people
We want to provide an environment where 
we attract, retain, develop and enable all 
our people to demonstrate, grow and apply 
their capabilities, offering opportunities for 
everyone to reach their potential. 

Environment
WANdisco’s overriding purpose is to 
power the LiveData future in a responsible 
and efficient manner. We aspire to apply 
sustainability management standards 
equal to our business ambitions, and every 
day we strive to make a difference in the 
communities in which we operate.

Social and community
As a company we have a strong ethos 
of giving back to the community. This 
includes fostering the next generation 
of data scientists.  

Priorities

Priorities

Priorities

•  Attract, retain and develop our people. 

•  Ensure low impact of our business 

on the environment.

•  Development of engineering skills in 
local schools, university and colleges.

Outcomes

Outcomes

Outcomes

•  A number of successful new hires 

in the year in key roles.

•  Successful hire, onboarding and 

development of people during the 
COVID-19 pandemic during which our 
offices have remained closed.

•  Internal promotions with the business.

•  Investment in technology to collaborate 
and reduce physical travel to reduce 
the Group’s environmental footprint. 

•  The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in 
our offices closing in March 2020, 
with our employees working remotely 
and reduction in business travel.

•  Work placement students and WANdisco 

Data Academy. 

•  Platform for employees to promote and 
raise awareness of charities important 
to them.

28

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

 
 
 
Our people
Delivering relevant talent

WANdisco prides itself on its wealth of talent 
and its retention record. This is important 
given the competition for good software 
engineers. We have a strong track record 
of keeping people challenged, motivated 
and enthused by the complex scenarios 
our technology addresses. 

In addition to providing work that stretches 
our people, we operate a mentoring scheme 
for those joining us fresh from university or 
early in their careers. Our young engineers 
are given the chance to shadow and work 
alongside data scientists with PhDs, many 
of whom have 30 or more years’ real-world 
experience. Our Chief Data Scientist, 
Inventor and Co-founder, Dr Yeturu Aahlad, 
who developed the complex mathematical 
algorithm that forms the basis of WANdisco’s 
patented DConE technology, is well known 
for being highly approachable. Our younger 
employees say that their day-to-day contact 
with Dr Aahlad and other senior engineers 
is more inspiring and useful than weeks of 
classroom training. Dr Aahlad is recognised 
as a global authority on distributed 

computing. He has a PhD in the subject from 
the University of Texas, Austin, as well as a 
BSc in Electrical Engineering from the Indian 
Institute of Technology (“IIT”), Madras. 

California: Silicon Valley 

Silicon Valley is a recognised centre of 
excellence for open-source development. 
In San Ramon, California, our engineering 
heritage goes back to our roots in the 
Hadoop open-source community. Today, 
some eleven developers are based here, 
including our Chief Scientist, Dr Yeturu 
Aahlad and Konstantin Boudnik our VP 
and Chief Architect. 

UK 

Our employees in the UK come from all over 
the world and include graduates and PhD 
students from Queen’s University, Belfast, 
Northern Ireland, which is globally acclaimed 
for its IT credentials. Sheffield is our 
European base and home to both our core 
technology development and customer 
support teams. In Belfast we also have part 
of our software development team, including 
the core of the WANdisco Fusion 
development team. 

We continue to look for opportunities to 
achieve gender balance in our hiring policies, 
in addition to seeking the best professionals 
across the age and experience spectrum. 
Our approach continues to be to match the 
most appropriate person to the role, but in 
light of findings that female representation 
in technology companies is still below 20% 
in some Western markets, we have taken 
proactive steps, such as improving our 
maternity provision, to ensure that our 
Company policies are not a barrier to women 
considering IT as a long-term career. In 
addition, we have continued to take proactive 
steps during the year to attend local events 
which aim to encourage more women into 
careers in engineering. At a grass-roots level, 
we are also committed to attracting talented 
new generations to data science and are 
working with Sheffield Hallam University 
to support and nurture talent.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

29

Strategic reportSustainability continued

Environment
Reduction in our 
environmental impact

We are committed to managing our use 
of resources and proactively managing 
our environmental impact. We continue 
to focus our commitment on areas that 
are most relevant to WANdisco, our people 
and our customers.

We have invested in technology to try 
and encourage collaboration across our 
business and also with customers and 
partners to reduce business travel.

Social and community
Delivering on corporate 
social responsibility

School placements 

We have provided work experience 
placements for secondary school children 
(Tapton Secondary School and Yewlands 
Academy) in Sheffield. 

WANdisco’s overriding purpose is to power 
the LiveData future in a responsible and 
efficient manner. We aspire to apply 
sustainability management standards 
equal to our business ambitions, and every 
day we strive to make a difference in the 
communities in which we operate.

As a company we have a strong ethos of 
giving back to the community. This includes 
fostering the next generation of data 
scientists. This commitment spans both 
sides of the Atlantic, from Sheffield in the 
UK, where the Company’s British operations 
are based (and where CEO David Richards 
originates from), and the Belfast operation, 
to Silicon Valley, where WANdisco’s North 
American operations are headquartered.

In 2020, the Company and its employees 
supported the following charitable and 
community causes: 

The Sheffield UTC Academy Trust 
(University Technical College)

Members of our Sheffield team attended 
meetings with the Director of Computing 
at UTC Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park to 
encourage college students to consider 
careers in tech and widen their horizons 
on the types of jobs within the industry, and 
to help provide some ideas for project work. 

Sheffield Hallam University interaction

During 2020 we have continued our practice 
to take Sheffield University placement 
students for twelve-month placements. 
We have seen great success with this with 
students leaving at the end of their twelve 
months with the necessary skills to obtain 
employment within WANdisco. One student 
was taken on as a full-time member of 
the Customer Success team after their 
placement and University course was 
completed. We have engaged with 
Sheffield Hallam via their Preferred 
Placement scheme and secured further 
placement students for 2021.

The Sheffield College WANdisco 
Data Academy 

The WANdisco Data Academy was launched 
at The Sheffield College in September 2019. 
WANdisco has partnered with the college to 
provide an enhanced learning environment 
for students at the college. The students 
enter the academy via application and 
interview and, during their time in the 
WANdisco-branded classrooms, will 
receive support from the Company by way of 
specialist speakers, workplace visits, special 
projects, masterclasses and interaction with 
employees. A selection of the students will 
also be able to take part in a placement year 
at WANdisco spending one day per week 
within the office, giving an insight into the 
business, and working on projects set up 
by experts in their field. Attendance at the 
WANdisco Academy has been reported 
as being high (94%), and feedback from 
the students has been “incredible”. 

WANdisco believes in the importance of 
giving employees the opportunity to support 
charities and causes that are important to 
them and to raise awareness. To enable this, 
we have a platform for employees to post 
information on, and which allows other 
employees to donate to these charities 
if they wish. 

In the UK, the Sheffield office donated 
£3,000 to the Sheffield Children’s Charity 
for the “Snowflake Switch On” in December 
2020. This money went towards a funding 
shortfall for the Sheffield Children’s Hospital 
who were aiming to raise almost £3m to 
help with the redevelopment of the cancer 
and leukaemia ward. In addition, during the 
COVID-19 pandemic the Group donated 
£36,000 in the UK towards food banks in 
the cities in which it has offices (Sheffield, 
Belfast and Newcastle upon Tyne) and 
$25,000 in San Ramon in the US.

30

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

David & Jane Richards Family Foundation, djrff.org 

Through the charitable David & Jane 
Richards Family Foundation, WANdisco’s 
CEO, David Richards, is investing in 
programmes to improve the way schools 
inspire children to learn about technology, 
specifically data science. 

Although many schools have introduced 
creative ways to teach coding to even very 
young children, David wants to see schools 
inspiring pupils to use data and technology 
to solve real-world problems – skills he 
believes will be more useful to the economy 
in the future. Created in collaboration with 
both educational and industry experts, the 
foundation’s pioneering “Get Creative with 
Data” course is currently being taught to over 
1,000 KS3 students in eight schools across 
Sheffield and South Yorkshire, with 
ambitious plans for a wider rollout. 

The Richards are also passionate about 
ecology and the environment, and are keen 
to help young people become advocates for 
a greener society. Amidst an ever-growing 
concern for the UK’s dwindling bee 
population, the Foundation is funding the 
installation and running costs of beehives 
and bee colonies at a number of schools 
around Sheffield. 

David is the co-chair of Laptop for 
Kids. Laptops for Kids is a charitable 
organisation that facilitates the donation, 
secure erasure and distribution of used 
digital devices, enabling children from 
disadvantaged backgrounds to have 
access to the technology they need 
to participate in remote learning. 
Companies, big and small, have pledged 
to donate computers that are surplus 
to their requirements. Students at 
the WANdisco Data Academy at The 
Sheffield College are securely erasing the 
devices using licences and certification 
donated by global data security firm 
Blancco. The scheme covers the North 
of England including Sheffield, Doncaster, 
and the North East.

In addition, the charity also has another 
appeal called Cash for Connectivity, 
which aims to raise £1.2m to purchase 
internet-enabled dongles for the 
households of the North of England 
who need to get online.

These are being securely erased and 
given to the city’s disadvantaged young 
people, free of charge, enabling them 
to do the schoolwork they couldn’t 
do without a computer.

Over

1,000

KS3 students being taught the 

foundation’s pioneering  

“Get Creative with Data” course

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

31

Strategic reportBoard of Directors

Committee membership key

A  Audit Committee   N  Nomination Committee   R  Remuneration Committee    Committee Chairman

David Richards
Chairman, President, CEO 
and Co‑founder

N

Bob Corey
Vice Chairman and 
Senior Non‑executive Director

A N R

Erik Miller
Chief Financial Officer

N

Age
61

Length of tenure
Appointed 5 December 2016

Skills and experience
Erik was the Chief Financial Officer of Envivio, Inc., 
a NASDAQ-listed provider of video transcoding 
software, from February 2010 to January 2016, 
following its acquisition by Ericsson AB. From 
January 2008 to July 2009, Erik served as Chief 
Financial Officer at SigNav Pty. Ltd., a component 
supplier to the wireless industry, where he was 
responsible for finance and administration 
functions. From March 2006 to January 2008, he 
served as Chief Financial Officer at Tangler Pty. Ltd., 
a social networking company, where he was 
responsible for finance and administrative functions. 
Erik received a BS degree in Business Administration 
from the University of California, Berkeley.

External appointments
None.

Age
69

Length of tenure
Appointed 19 November 2018

Skills and experience
Bob brings more than 30 years of executive and 
financial management experience in public and 
private companies in Silicon Valley with software 
and hardware companies. 

Bob is highly experienced in managing the 
financial aspects of public companies; he has 
a strong history with Wall Street, and extensive 
mergers and acquisitions experience. He also 
has deep corporate governance acumen and has 
served on numerous boards in Silicon Valley as 
Chairman of the Board, Chairman of the Audit 
Committee, and a member on Compensation 
and Nomination and Governance Committees. 

Formerly Bob was Chief Financial Officer of 
Callidus Software, a $2.4bn acquisition by SAP 
in April 2018. Until September 2017, he sat on the 
board and chaired the audit committee for Apigee, 
a $625m acquisition by Google. He has also 
served as the Chief Financial Officer of 
FrontRange Solutions USA Inc., an enterprise 
software company. Prior to FrontRange, Bob was 
a member of the board of directors at Extreme 
Networks, Inc., an ethernet solutions company, 
ultimately serving as Interim Chief Executive 
Officer and Executive Vice President and Chief 
Financial Officer. Bob has also served as a 
member of the board of directors for AmberPoint, 
Interwoven, Live Ops and Veraz Networks. 

Bob began his career at Arthur Andersen, is a 
California CPA (not current), and has a Bachelor 
of Business Administration, Accounting from 
California State University at Fullerton. Bob is 
a Veteran of the United States Air Force, where 
he served as an Air Traffic Controller.

External appointments
None.

Age
50

Length of tenure
Appointed 11 May 2012  
(Chairman from 6 October 2016)

Skills and experience
Since co-founding the Company in Silicon Valley 
in 2005, David has led WANdisco on a course for 
rapid international expansion, opening offices 
in the UK, Japan and China. David spearheaded 
WANdisco to a hugely successful listing on the 
London Stock Exchange (WAND:LSE) and, shortly 
after, the acquisition of AltoStor, which accelerated 
the development of WANdisco’s first products for 
the Big Data market.

A passionate advocate of entrepreneurship, 
David has established and successfully exited 
several highly successful Silicon Valley technology 
companies. David was the founder and CEO of 
Librados, an application integration software 
provider, and led the company’s acquisition by 
NASDAQ-listed NetManage, Inc. in 2005. David is a 
frequent commentator on a range of business and 
technology issues, appearing regularly on Bloomberg 
and CNBC. David holds a BSc in Computer Science 
from the University of Huddersfield.

After Paul Walker, the former Chairman, stepped 
down from the Board in October 2016, David took 
the role of Chairman. In 2017 David was awarded 
an Honorary Doctorate by Sheffield Hallam 
University in recognition of him being a champion 
of British technology and a passionate advocate 
of entrepreneurship.

David and his wife Jane founded the David & 
Jane Richards Family Foundation with the purpose 
to educate, empower and improve the lives of 
children through hands-on programmes and 
targeted assistance. They aim to encourage 
children to fulfil their potential and make a positive 
impact on the world around them. The first 
programmes commenced in 2018 in some state 
schools in the UK, where they will use new 
methods to teach computing skills and install 
beehives as part of a wider teaching curriculum.

External appointments
With over 20 years of executive experience in 
the software industry, David sits on a number 
of advisory and executive boards of Silicon Valley 
start-up ventures.

32

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

Dr Yeturu Aahlad
Chief Scientist, Inventor 
and Co‑founder

Age
63 

Length of tenure
Appointed 23 February 2017

Skills and experience
Dr Aahlad is a recognised worldwide authority on 
distributed computing. He is named in 35 WANdisco 
patents, including US and international patents, 
continuations and divisionals. It was Dr Aahlad’s 
vision and years of persistence that led to the 
invention of technology that many thought was 
impossible – that of Active-Active replication 
(WANdisco’s patented DConE technology). Prior 
to WANdisco, Dr Aahlad served as the distributed 
systems architect for iPlanet (Sun/Netscape 
Alliance) Application Server. At Netscape, Dr Aahlad 
joined the elite team in charge of creating a new 
server platform based on the CORBA distributed 
object framework.

Prior to Sun/Netscape Dr Aahlad worked on 
incorporating the CORBA security service into 
Fujitsu’s Object Request Broker. Dr Aahlad 
designed and implemented the CORBA event 
services while working on Sun’s first CORBA 
initiative. Earlier in his career, Dr Aahlad worked 
on a distributed programming language at IBM’s 
Palo Alto Scientific Center.

Dr Aahlad has a PhD in Distributed Computing 
from the University of Texas, Austin, and a BSc 
in Electrical Engineering from IIT Madras.

External appointments
None.

Grant Dollens
Non‑executive Director

A N R

Karl Monaghan
Non‑executive Director

A N R

Age
42 

Age
58 

Length of tenure
Appointed 9 October 2016

Length of tenure
Appointed 5 December 2016

Skills and experience
Karl brings a wealth of capital markets and board 
experience. Prior to founding Ashling Capital, Karl 
has worked in corporate finance for Robert W. 
Baird, Credit Lyonnais Securities, Bank of Ireland, 
Johnson Fry and BDO Stoy Hayward. Additionally, 
he trained as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG 
in Dublin and holds a Bachelor of Commerce 
degree from University College Dublin.

External appointments
Karl is currently Managing Partner at Ashling 
Capital LLP, which he founded in December 2002, 
to provide consultancy services to both quoted 
and private companies.

Karl is also currently a Non-executive Director 
of AIM company CareTech Holdings plc.

Skills and experience
Prior to founding Global Frontier Investments, LLC, 
Grant was an Investment Analyst and member 
of the investment committee for Ayer Capital, 
a long/short equity healthcare fund, where he 
was focused on medical devices, diagnostics, 
healthcare services, biotechnology and 
pharmaceutical investments. Prior to Ayer, Grant 
was an Associate in the healthcare group at BA 
Venture Partners (now Scale Ventures), where he 
sourced, evaluated and invested in private medical 
device, biotechnology, specialty pharmaceutical 
and healthcare service companies. Before BA 
Venture Partners, Grant was an Investment 
Banking Analyst in corporate finance at Deutsche 
Bank Alex. Brown focused on the technology sector. 

Grant received his MBA from the Kellogg School 
of Management at Northwestern University, with 
majors in Analytical Finance, Management and 
Strategy, and Accounting. He received his BSc 
in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University.

External appointments
Grant founded Global Frontier Investments, LLC, 
a long-term oriented global equities fund, in 2010 
and serves as its Portfolio Manager. Grant is also 
a member of the board of ColdQuanta, Inc.

David 
Richards

Bob 
Corey

Erik 
Miller

Dr Yeturu 
Aahlad

Grant 
Dollens

Karl 
Monaghan

Sector experience

Technology

Financial management

Strategy development

Corporate governance

Corporate finance

Healthcare

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

33

Corporate governanceExecutive Team

Strong and experienced 
leadership team

Paul Scott-Murphy
Chief Technology Officer

Length of tenure
Six years

Keith Graham
Chief Revenue Officer

Length of tenure
Six years

Skills and experience
Paul has overall responsibility for WANdisco’s 
product strategy for platform, including the 
delivery of product to market and its success. 
This includes directing the product management 
team, product strategy, requirements definitions, 
feature management and prioritisation, roadmaps, 
coordination of product releases with customer 
and partner requirements and testing. Previously 
Regional Chief Technology Officer for TIBCO 
Software in Asia Pacific and Japan. Paul has a 
Bachelor of Science with first class honours and 
a Bachelor of Engineering with first class honours 
from the University of Western Australia.

Skills and experience
Keith previously spent nine years with TIBCO 
Software in Asia Pacific including serving for 
over five years as Regional Vice President and 
Managing Director of Australia and New Zealand. 
Keith worked at Librados as Vice President EMEA, 
where he was part of the founding team from 
start-up until the acquisition by NetManage. 
He was a Regional Director at Reuters Plc, 
where he was responsible for Reuters’ $100m+ 
software solutions business. Keith holds an MA 
in Management Science and Information Systems 
Studies from Trinity College, Dublin.

Peter Scott
SVP Business Development 

Length of tenure
Twelve years

Skills and experience
Peter was a member of the sales management 
team at Empirix’s Web Business Unit, which was 
acquired by Oracle. He was also part of the sales 
management team at Vecta Software, a CRM and 
business intelligence software vendor. He began 
his career with Sales Dynamics, helping early 
stage venture-backed technology companies 
establish sales processes that enabled them to 
achieve aggressive revenue targets. Prior to his 
career in technology sales, Peter spent six years 
in the British Army with the Royal Engineers.

Steve Kilgore
SVP Field Operations

Length of tenure
Four years

Van Diamandakis
SVP of Marketing

Length of tenure
One year

Anne Lynch
SVP Human Resources

Length of tenure
Four years

Skills and experience
Steve has over 30 years of industry experience 
including stints at Sun Microsystems and Oracle, 
as well as running his own successful consulting 
company for over 16 years. He has served as a 
trusted adviser to companies such as Fannie Mae, 
Freddie Mac, Charles Schwab, Nike, and Delta 
Airlines. Steve holds Bachelors and Masters 
degrees in Computer Science from the University 
of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Skills and experience
Van is a proven Silicon Valley technology executive 
with over 25 years of operational experience that 
draws upon his track record leading global 
marketing transformations, driving to meaningful 
financial events including IPOs and acquisitions. 
Van has been at the forefront of B2B technology 
marketing. Previously Van was a five-time CMO 
and held executive marketing positions at Oracle, 
WebEx, Riverbed Technology, Sage Business 
Cloud, Joyent and Persado AI. Van is a MBA 
graduate of The University of Iowa.

Skills and experience
Anne was the VP HR of Envivio, Inc. She was also 
the VP HR for Harmonic, Inc. as well as the Director 
General of Harmonic Europe. She has also held 
senior level positions at Quantum (Seagate), 
Schlumberger Limited and Computer Sciences 
Corporation (“CSC”). Anne earned her BA at Clarke 
University and completed graduate studies in 
Linguistics at Emory University and postgraduate 
studies at L’université Paris-Sorbonne. She has 
a Master of Arts degree in Business Leadership 
and Ethics from St. Mary’s College of California.

34

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

David Richards
Chairman, President, 
CEO and Co‑founder 

Erik Miller
Chief Financial Officer 

Dr Yeturu Aahlad
Chief Scientist, 
Inventor and Co‑founder 

Read about our Board from page 32

Justin Holtzinger
SVP, Product and Engineering

Ian Wild
VP Customer Experience

Daud Khan
VP Corporate Development

Length of tenure
Three years

Length of tenure
Twelve years

Length of tenure
Three years

Skills and experience
Justin is a customer-focused leader with more 
than 20 years of experience and a proven track 
record of successfully building high-performance 
technology teams capable of delivering unmatched 
customer experiences during his seven-year career 
at EMC, where he held leadership roles in professional 
services, led their Global Data Migration Practice, 
and later led the global services product launch 
for EMC’s high-performance Big Data compute 
appliance. Justin obtained his Master of Business 
Administration from St. Mary’s of California.

Skills and experience
Ian has been a part of the WANdisco team for over 
ten years, in that time progressing through a range 
of roles including technical sales, engineering and 
product management. Ian built and managed the 
rapid expansion of the UK based engineering teams 
before relocating to California in 2014 where he 
now owns customer experience as part of the 
product management function.

Skills and experience
Daud has spent the majority of his career following 
and commentating on infrastructure and application 
software companies and IT service companies. 
He was a Director in equity research at Canaccord 
Genuity covering UK technology companies. Daud 
was previously at Berenberg, where he established 
its global technology research franchise. Daud has 
also had senior roles at JP Morgan Cazenove and 
Merrill Lynch. Daud qualified as an accountant (ACA) 
from PwC in 1999 and has an MA in Computer 
Science/Management Studies from the University 
of Cambridge.

Larry Webster
General Counsel and 
Company Secretary

Length of tenure
Seven years

Skills and experience
Larry previously worked at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich 
& Rosati, a large California-based law firm, where he 
provided advice and services both to large corporations 
and emerging growth technology companies. 
He also had roles in Gunderson Dettmer, another 
Silicon Valley firm, and Hughes & Luce, a Dallas law 
firm. He started his legal career at telecommunications 
giant Northern Telecom in Texas. Larry holds a JD 
from Brigham Young University, a BSc in Business 
Management and a BA in Asian Studies, also from 
Brigham Young University.

Dr Konstantin Boudnik
VP and Chief Architect

Length of tenure
One year

Skills and experience
Dr Konstantin Boudnik is one of the veteran 
developers of Apache Hadoop, co-author of 
Apache BigTop, the open-source framework 
for creation of software stacks and operation of 
data processing projects used by all commercial 
vendors of Hadoop-based platforms. With 
more than 20 years of experience in software 
development, Dr Boudnik was awarded with 
16 US patents in distributed computing. Over 
the years, Dr Boudnik has founded a number 
of technological start-ups, and his consulting 
business delivers solutions for companies.

Dr Ramki Thurimella
VP Research & Development

Length of tenure
Three years

Skills and experience
Dr Thurimella has extensive experience in 
algorithm design and information security. 
He has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers 
and three book chapters in these areas. He held 
various senior positions at the University of 
Denver, including the Director of Cybersecurity 
and the Chair of Computer Science, and was 
Director of Engineering at P2 Energy Solutions 
and Software Architect and Project Manager at 
Symphony Media. Dr Thurimella has a PhD in 
Parallel Graph Algorithms from the University 
of Texas, Austin, and an MS in Computer 
Science from IIT Madras.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

35

Corporate governanceVice Chairman’s introduction to governance
Bob Corey, Vice Chairman and Senior Non‑executive Director

Effective governance 
and leadership 

Bob Corey 

Vice Chairman and Senior 
Non‑executive Director

3  Non-executive Directors

3  Executive Directors

Board composition

 50+
 17+

1  0–3 years

Tenure

5  3–5 years

As an AIM‑listed company the Board has adopted 
the Quoted Companies Alliance (“QCA”) Corporate 
Governance Code.

The Corporate governance statement, 
together with the information provided below 
and in the Audit Committee report, explains 
how WANdisco’s governance framework 
works. As a Board, we recognise that we 
are accountable to shareholders for good 
corporate governance, and we seek to 
promote consistently high standards of 
governance throughout the Group. The 
Group promotes this culture within its 
strategy and management of risks and is 
continually analysing this, from information 
provided by the executive management 
team, to ensure compliance.

During the year, we have complied with 
the QCA Code with the following exception:

•  David Richards fulfils the role of Chairman 
and CEO of the Company. David took on 
both roles following the resignation of the 
prior Chairman. Bob Corey was appointed 
in November 2018 as Senior Non-executive 
Director and Vice Chairman to better 
balance the roles of CEO and Chairman.

During the year under review, we have 
continued to evaluate the composition 
of our Board, but no further appointments 
have been made.

In considering refreshment of the Board 
and succession planning, the Board will have 
regard to ongoing developments and trends 
including in relation to matters such as 
diversity in its broadest sense. Whilst the 
Company pursues diversity, including gender 
diversity, throughout the business, the Board 
is not committed to any specific targets. 
Instead, the Board will continue to pursue a 
policy of appointing talented people at every 
level to deliver high-performance.

The Board holds all its strategic decision-
making meetings at the Group’s US offices 
and, as a result, takes the opportunity to 
meet with members of the Executive Team 
and to build on knowledge of the business. 
There are regular interactive presentations 
from, and discussions with, the Executive 
Team and, in 2020, these have included 
the topics of product strategy, partnerships 
and engineering progress.

Finally, the Annual General Meeting (“AGM”) 
will be held at the UK Company’s offices on 
16 June 2021. Due to COVID-19 restrictions 
on people gathering, the AGM will be 
restricted to two attendees, both of whom 
will be shareholders for the purposes of 
forming a quorum. Unfortunately, other 
shareholders must not attend the AGM 
in person, but shareholders are strongly 
encouraged to exercise their vote on 
the matters of business at the AGM by 
submitting a proxy appointment and giving 
voting instructions. There will be a section 
on the Company website allowing 
shareholders to post any questions 
they might have.

Bob Corey
Vice Chairman and Senior 
Non‑executive Director
4 May 2021

Learn more about our 
governance from page 37

36

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

50
+
K
83
+
K
Corporate governance report

Ensuring the long-term 
success of the Group

Board effectiveness

Meeting attendance

Board composition and responsibilities

The Board comprises three Executive 
Directors (including the Chairman) and three 
Non-executive Directors, two of which are 
independent (Bob Corey and Karl Monaghan). 

The Board is responsible for the long-term 
success of the Group. It has established a 
strategy and business model which promote 
long-term value for shareholders as outlined 
in the Strategic report on pages 6 to 31. 
It sets the Group’s values, standards and 
strategic aims and oversees implementation 
within a framework of prudent and effective 
controls, ensuring only acceptable risks are 
taken. It provides leadership and direction 
and is also responsible for corporate 
governance and the overall financial 
performance of the Group. In addition, it 
promotes a corporate culture that is based 
on ethical values and behaviours; these 
corporate values guide the objectives 
and strategy of the Company. 

The corporate values are reflected in 
everything that the Company does, 
beginning with the selection criteria used 
in the employee recruitment process and 
continuing throughout all elements of the 
Company’s business. The Board ensures 
that ethical behaviours are expected, and 
followed, by approving a set of internal 
policies on matters such as whistleblowing. 
The Board also ensures that appropriate 
systems and controls are in place to ensure 
compliance with those policies as part of 
its efforts to promote a healthy corporate 
culture, which is for the benefit of 
all stakeholders.

The Board has agreed the schedule of 
matters reserved for its decision, which 
includes ensuring that the necessary 
financial and human resources are in place 
to meet its obligations to its shareholders 
and others. It also approves acquisitions 
and disposals of businesses, major capital 
expenditure and annual financial budgets, 
and sets dividend policy. 

David Richards

Bob Corey

Erik Miller

Dr Yeturu Aahlad

Grant Dollens

Karl Monaghan

Attended

Did not attend

Not required to attend

An Executive Committee supports the Board in implementing strategy and reports relevant 
matters to the Board for its consideration and approval. This Executive Committee 
comprises three Executive Directors and twelve members of senior management. 

All the Directors have access to the advice and services of the Company Secretary, who is 
responsible for ensuring compliance with applicable rules, regulations and Board procedures.

Directors have the right to request that any concerns they have are recorded in the 
appropriate Committee or Board minutes. 

Board and Committee meetings

The table above shows the number of Board meetings held during the year, and the 
attendance of each Director. See our Committee reports for Audit, Remuneration and 
Nomination Committee meetings.

Board Committees

To assist the Board in carrying out its functions and to ensure that there is independent 
oversight of internal controls and risk management, the Board delegates certain responsibilities 
to its three principal Committees as shown in the governance framework diagram below.

More detail on each of the Committees can be found on pages 41 to 46.

Governance framework

Board

Executive Team

Chaired by the Chief Executive Officer, it comprises the three Executive Directors and 
senior management representation from product, marketing, engineering, business 
development, finance, legal, HR, sales and support. It assists the Executive Directors 
in implementing the business plan and policies and managing the operational and 
financial performance of the Company.

Nomination Committee

Learn more on page 41

Audit Committee

Learn more from page 42

Remuneration Committee

Learn more from page 44

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

37

Corporate governanceCorporate governance report continued

Ensuring Board 
effectiveness

Board effectiveness continued

Board independence, appointment 
and re‑election

There are two Non-executive Directors, who 
are considered by the Board to be independent 
of the management and are free to exercise 
independence of judgement. They have never 
been employees of the Group and they do not 
participate in the Group’s bonus arrangements. 
They receive no other remuneration from 
the Group other than their Directors’ fees.

Each new Director, on appointment, is briefed 
on the activities of the Group. Professional 
induction training is also given as appropriate. 
The Chairman briefs Non-executive Directors 
on issues arising at Board meetings if required 
and Non-executive Directors have access to 
the Chairman at any time. Ongoing training 
is provided as needed. Directors were updated 
on a frequent and regular basis on the 
Group’s business.

Directors are subject to re-election at the 
Annual General Meeting (“AGM”) following 
their appointment. In addition, at each AGM 
one-third (or the whole number nearest to 
one-third) of the Directors retire by rotation.

Terms of appointment and 
time commitment 

All Non-executive Directors are appointed 
for an initial term of three years subject to 
satisfactory performance. After this time, 
they may serve additional three-year 
terms following review by the Board. 
All Non-executive Directors are expected 
to devote such time as is necessary for the 
proper performance of their duties. Directors 
are expected to attend all Board meetings 
and Committee meetings of which they 
are members and any additional meetings 
as required. Further details of their terms 
and conditions are summarised in the 
Remuneration report on pages 44 to 46 and 
the terms and conditions of appointment of 
the Non-executive Directors are available at 
the Company’s registered office.

Development, information and support

All Board Directors have access to the 
Company Secretary, who advises them on 
governance matters. The Chairman and the 
Company Secretary work together to ensure 
that Board papers are clear, accurate, delivered 
in a timely manner to Directors and of sufficient 
quality to enable the Board to discharge its 
duties. Specific business-related presentations 
are given by members of the Executive Team 

when appropriate and external speakers also 
attend Board meetings to present on relevant 
topics. As well as the support of the Company 
Secretary, there is a procedure in place for any 
Director to take independent professional 
advice at the Company’s expense in the 
furtherance of their duties, where considered 
necessary. As part of the Board evaluation 
process, training and development needs 
are considered and training courses are 
arranged, where appropriate.

In line with the Code, we ensure that any 
new Directors joining the Board receive 
appropriate support and are given a tailored 
induction programme organised through the 
Company Secretary, including the provision 
of background material on the Company and 
briefings with management as appropriate. 
Each Director’s individual experience and 
background are considered in developing 
a programme tailored to his or her own 
requirements. Any new Director will 
also be expected to meet with major 
shareholders if required.

Succession planning

The Nomination Committee focuses 
on Board succession and composition 
and succession planning. 

Board activities throughout the year

At each scheduled meeting

Discuss:
•  Strategic and operational matters 

•  Trading results 

•  Management accounts and financial commentary 

•  Treasury matters 

•  Legal, Company Secretarial and regulatory matters 

•  Investor relations 

•  Corporate affairs 

Review:
•  Minutes of previous meetings 

•  The implementation of actions agreed at previous meetings 

•  The rolling annual agenda items

38

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

February
Update on product strategy 
and partnerships

Approval of 2020 budget

April
Review of COVID support

Board evaluation

The performance of the Board was evaluated 
informally on an ongoing basis with reference 
to all aspects of its operation including, but 
not limited to: the appropriateness of its skill 
level; the way its meetings were conducted 
and administered (including the content of 
those meetings); the effectiveness of the 
various Committees; whether corporate 
governance issues were handled in a 
satisfactory manner; and whether there 
was a clear strategy and objectives. 
The conclusion was that the Board was 
performing as expected. 

The Board evaluation was internally facilitated 
and aligned with the ten principles of the QCA 
Code. All members of the Board fully engaged 
with the Board evaluation, which has produced 
a consistent set of results in terms of both 
the participants’ assessment of the strengths 
and current state of the Board, and also 
the priorities for further development. The 
feedback from the evaluation exercise has 
been very useful, and will guide further 
actions and decisions taken because of it. 
Each Director’s performance is appraised 
through the normal appraisal process. Save 
for the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, 
who was appraised by the Non-executive 
Directors, the Executive Board members 
were appraised by the Chairman and 
Chief Executive Officer. The Non-executive 
Directors were appraised by the Chairman 
and Chief Executive Officer.

Internal controls and risk management

The Board is responsible for the Group’s system 
of internal controls and for reviewing its 
effectiveness. Such a system is designed 
to mitigate against and manage, rather than 

eliminate, the risk of failure to achieve business 
objectives and can only provide reasonable 
and not absolute assurance against material 
misstatement or loss. Executive management 
considered the potential financial and 
non-financial risks which may impact on the 
business as part of the quarterly management 
reporting procedures. The Board received 
the principal risk outputs of these quarterly 
management reports and monitored the 
position at Board meetings. The principal 
risks are set out on pages 23 to 25.

The Board confirms that there are ongoing 
processes for identifying, evaluating and 
mitigating the significant risks faced by 
the Group. The processes, which have been 
in place throughout the year and up to the 
date of approval of the Annual Report 
and Accounts, are consistent, so far as is 
appropriate for the nature and size of the 
Group’s business, with the guidance issued 
by the Financial Reporting Council.

The Group’s internal financial control and 
monitoring procedures include:

•  clear responsibility on the part of line and 

financial management for the maintenance 
of good financial controls and the 
production of accurate and timely financial 
management information;

•  the control of key financial risks through 

appropriate authorisation levels and 
segregation of accounting duties;

•  detailed monthly budgeting and reporting 

of trading results, balance sheets and cash 
flows, with regular review by management 
of variances from budget;

•  reporting on any non-compliance 
with internal financial controls and 
procedures; and 

•  review of reports issued by the 

external auditor.

The Audit Committee, on behalf of the 
Board, reviewed reports from the external 
auditor together with management’s 
response regarding proposed actions. In this 
manner, it has reviewed the effectiveness of 
the system of internal controls for the year 
under review.

The Group considers information security 
to be of utmost importance, demonstrated 
by our ISO 27001 certification, the globally-
recognised standard for information 
security. To achieve and maintain our 
certification we have developed a number 
of processes that allow us to more fully 
understand the information we process and 
the security threats we face, which has led 
to us adopting policies and systematically 
implementing controls to manage and 
mitigate these threats. Our Information 
Security Group, made up of senior 
employees in multiple departments, 
oversees the creation, execution and 
continual improvement of our Information 
Security Management System. Our core 
security-related values are clearly understood 
and articulated in our information security 
policies, and staff awareness of risks, and 
their obligations to identify and manage 
them, improves year over year. Our adopted 
approach affords better protection of all our 
stakeholders’ information and allows the 
Group to continually improve and adapt its 
information security controls as new threats 
emerge and our business undergoes change 
and expansion in our turbulent world.

Update on engineering 
and partnerships

August

June
Approval of share subscription

Review and approval of Annual Report and 
Accounts 2019

Review and approval of preliminary 
announcement of 2019 results 

Consideration and approval of appointment 
of external auditor

Review of Non-executive Director fees

October
Update on product strategy 
and partnerships

December
Review of finance options

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

39

Corporate governanceCorporate governance report continued

Communicating 
to our shareholders

Relations with shareholders

WANdisco is committed to communicating 
openly with its shareholders to ensure that 
its strategy and performance are clearly 
understood. During the year, numerous 
activities were undertaken to engage 
with shareholders.

Results announcements

We communicate with shareholders through 
our full-year and half-year announcements 
and trading updates. We invite institutional 
shareholders and analysts to view our 
full-year and half-year announcements. 
The presentation slides and a webcast of 
the presentations are made available at 
www.wandisco.com/investors/reports-and-
presentations on the day of announcement.

Shareholder meetings

The AGM is the principal forum for dialogue 
with private shareholders, and we encourage 
shareholders to attend and participate. The 
AGM was held on Wednesday 28 July 2020 

at our office in Sheffield, with the results 
being published on our website,  
www.wandisco.com/investors. 

This year’s AGM will be held at 10am on 
Wednesday 16 June 2021 at our office 
in Sheffield. Full details are included in 
the Notice of Meeting, which is sent to 
shareholders at least 21 days before the 
meeting. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the 
meeting will be restricted to two attendees. 
However, shareholders are strongly 
encouraged to exercise their vote. In 
addition, there will be a section on the 
Company website allowing shareholders 
to post any questions they might have.

Website and shareholder 
communications

Our website, www.wandisco.com/investors, 
provides a range of corporate information 
on our business, results and financial 
performance, including copies of our 
Annual Report and Accounts, announcements 
and presentations.

Meetings, roadshows and conferences

The Directors actively seek to build a mutual 
understanding of objectives with institutional 
shareholders. Shareholder relations are 
managed primarily by the Chief Executive 
Officer and the Chief Financial Officer. 
A calendar of events is set out below. 

The Chief Executive Officer and the 
Chief Financial Officer regularly meet with 
institutional shareholders to foster a mutual 
understanding of objectives. In particular, 
an extensive programme of meetings with 
analysts and institutional shareholders is 
held following the interim and preliminary 
results announcements. Feedback from 
these meetings and market updates prepared 
by the Company’s Nomad are presented 
to the Board to ensure it understands 
shareholders’ views. The other Non-executive 
Directors are available to shareholders to 
discuss strategy and governance issues.

2020 key shareholder engagements

Month

June 2020

July 2020

September 2020

October 2020

November 2020

Communication

Type

Annual Report published

AGM

Result of AGM

Interim results

LD Micro Conference 

JMP Securities Small-Cap Technology Forum

Needham Virtual Conference

Meeting

RNS

Report

Conference

40

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

 
 
Nomination Committee report
David Richards, Chairman, President, CEO and Co‑founder

Monitoring 
succession planning 

David Richards 

Chairman, President, 
CEO and Co‑founder

Committee meeting attendance

David Richards

Bob Corey

Erik Miller

Grant Dollens

Karl Monaghan

Attended

Did not attend

Not required to attend

Estimated allocation of time

 5+

5%  

Performance evaluation

80% 

Succession planning

15% 

Structure review

The Nomination Committee assists the Board in determining 
Board appointments and succession planning for Directors.

Committee composition

Committee meetings

The Nomination Committee is chaired by 
David Richards and the other members of 
the Committee are Bob Corey, Grant Dollens, 
Karl Monaghan and Erik Miller. 

Committee responsibilities

The Nomination Committee has 
responsibility for: reviewing the structure, 
size and composition of the Board and 
recommending to the Board any changes 
required; succession planning; and 
identifying and nominating for approval 
Board candidates to fill vacancies as and 
when they arise. The Committee is also 
responsible for reviewing the results of 
any Board performance evaluation process 
and making recommendations to the Board 
concerning the Board’s Committees and 
the re-election of Directors at the AGM. 

The membership of the Nomination 
Committee comprises the three Non-executive 
Directors, David Richards and Erik Miller.

The Nomination Committee is required to 
meet not less than twice a year and at such 
other times as required.

It has written terms of reference, which are 
available for review at www.wandisco.com.

The Nomination Committee met two times 
in the year, with the Chief Executive Officer 
and Chief Financial Officer in attendance. 

The Board has considered diversity in 
broader terms than just gender and believes 
it is also important to have the correct 
balance of skills, experience, independence 
and knowledge on the Board. All Board 
appointments will be made on merit and 
with the aim of achieving a correct balance. 
The Group has formal policies in place to 
promote equality of opportunity across 
the whole organisation and training is 
provided to assist this. 

Currently, there are no women on the Board. 
As opportunities arise, the Board will seek 
to increase the presence of women on the 
Board consistent with the above policy 
and the terms of reference of the 
Nomination Committee.

David Richards
Chairman, President, 
CEO and Co‑founder
4 May 2021

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

41

Corporate governance80
+
15
+
K
Audit Committee report
Bob Corey, Vice Chairman and Senior Non‑executive Director

Ensuring compliance 
and effectiveness

Bob Corey 

Vice Chairman and Senior 
Non‑executive Director

Committee meeting attendance

Bob Corey

Grant Dollens

Karl Monaghan

Attended

Did not attend

Not required to attend

Estimated allocation of time

 5+

5%  

Performance evaluation

25% 

10% 

20% 

Accounting matters

Risk management

Internal controls

40% 

Financial reporting

I am pleased to present the Report of the Audit Committee, 
which provides a summary of the Committee’s role and 
activities during the 2020 financial year.

Committee composition

Committee meetings

Bob Corey is the Chairman of the Committee 
and the other members of the Committee 
are Karl Monaghan and Grant Dollens. 
The Board considers Bob Corey to have 
relevant and recent financial experience, 
given his biography set out on page 32.

Committee responsibilities

The Audit Committee (“the Committee”) 
is established by and is responsible to the 
Board. It has written terms of reference, which 
are available for review at www.wandisco.com. 
Its main responsibilities are:

•  to monitor and be satisfied that the Group’s 

financial statements are fair, balanced 
and understandable before submission 
to the Board for approval, ensuring their 
compliance with the appropriate accounting 
standards, the law and the AIM Rules;

•  to monitor and review the effectiveness 
of the Group’s system of internal control;

•  to make recommendations to the Board in 
relation to the appointment of the external 
auditor and its remuneration, following 
appointment by the shareholders in 
general meeting, and to review and be 
satisfied with the auditor’s independence, 
objectivity and effectiveness on an 
ongoing basis; and

•  to implement the policy relating to any 
non-audit services performed by the 
external auditor.

The Committee is authorised by the Board 
to seek and obtain any information it 
requires from any officer or employee of the 
Group and to obtain external legal or other 
independent professional advice as is 
deemed necessary by it.

There were two meetings of the Committee 
during the year scheduled to coincide with 
the review of the scope of the external audit 
and observations arising from its work in 
relation to internal control, and to review the 
financial statements. The external auditor 
attended all of these meetings. Since the 
end of the financial year, the Committee 
has met once (in March 2021) to consider, 
amongst other matters, this Annual Report, 
with the external auditor being present at 
this meeting. The Committee also met with 
the external auditor, without the Executive 
Directors being present, once during 
the year.

Significant work undertaken by the 
Committee during the year

Review of the 2020 financial statements

The Audit Committee reviewed and 
endorsed, prior to submission to the Board, 
full-year financial statements and the 
preliminary, interim results and trading 
update announcements. The Committee 
considered risk management updates, 
agreed external audit plans, approved 
accounting policies and ensured appropriate 
whistleblowing arrangements and 
associated policies were in place.

In reviewing the financial statements 
with management and the auditor, the 
Committee has discussed and debated 
the critical accounting judgements and key 
sources of estimation uncertainty as set 
out in Note 4 to the financial statements. 
As a result of our review, the Committee has 
identified the following issues that require 
a high level of judgement or have a 
significant impact on the interpretation 
of this Annual Report.

42

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

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20
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Brexit

Management reviewed the potential impacts 
that Brexit could have on the business.

The Committee is satisfied with the findings 
identified and that appropriate disclosures 
have been made in the Annual Report 
and Accounts.

Going concern

The consolidated financial statements have 
been prepared on a going concern basis, 
which assumes that the Group will be able to 
meet the mandatory repayment terms of the 
banking facilities as disclosed in Note 23.

The detailed budget and forecasts formed 
the basis of the going concern review and 
management also prepared a sensitised 
version, which considered a delay in revenue 
growth and included actions, under the 
control of the Group, that they could take 
to further significantly reduce the cost 
base in the coming year in the event that 
longer-term revenue is set to remain 
consistent with the level reported in 2020. 
Further details are included in Note 2(b).

The Committee is satisfied with the findings 
of the going concern review and that 
appropriate disclosures have been made 
in the Annual Report and Accounts.

Revenue recognition

Under IFRS 15 the Group is required to 
de-bundle subscription arrangements 
into the separate licence and maintenance 
and support performance obligations. The 
method of allocation requires judgement 
and is based on prior experience of separate 
arrangements (e.g. when maintenance and 
support is sold separately on a perpetual 
licence) along with market practice.

The Committee is satisfied that the 
judgements made by management are 
reasonable and that appropriate disclosures 
have been made in the Annual Report 
and Accounts.

Capitalisation and carrying value 
of development costs

The Group capitalises development costs 
which meet the criteria required under IAS 38. 
The carrying amount of the intangible 
assets is allocated to CGUs. The recoverable 
amount was calculated using a value 
in use basis based on financial forecasts.

The Committee is satisfied that the 
judgements made by management in the 
value in use calculation are reasonable and 
that appropriate disclosures have been 
made in the Annual Report and Accounts.

In reaching this conclusion the Committee 
has considered the reports and analysis 
prepared by management and has also 
constructively challenged assumptions. 
The Committee has also considered 
detailed reporting from and discussions 
with the external auditor.

considered all relationships between the 
external auditor and the Group and was 
satisfied that they did not compromise 
the auditor’s judgement or independence, 
particularly with the provision of 
non-audit services. 

An internal review of the effectiveness of 
the external audit process was carried out 
during the year and no deficiencies were 
found. Management was satisfied with 
the external audit team’s knowledge of the 
business and that the scope of the audit 
was appropriate, all significant accounting 
judgements had been challenged robustly 
and the audit had been effective.

All of the above was considered before 
a recommendation was made by the 
Committee to the Board to propose 
BDO for re-election at the AGM.

Internal audit function

Given the Group’s size and development, the 
Board did not consider it necessary to have 
an internal audit function during the year. 
The Board will continue to monitor this 
requirement annually.

Committee performance

The Committee carried out an annual 
assessment of its own performance during 
the year and the conclusion was that the 
Committee was performing as expected.

Bob Corey
Vice Chairman and 
Senior Non‑executive Director
4 May 2021

External auditor

As required, the external auditor provided 
the Committee with information for 
review about policies and processes 
for maintaining its independence and 
compliance regarding the rotation of 
audit partners and staff. The Committee 

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

43

Corporate governanceRemuneration Committee and remuneration report
Karl Monaghan, Chairman of the Remuneration Committee

Determining 
remuneration policies

Karl Monaghan 

Chairman of the 
Remuneration Committee

Committee meeting attendance

Karl Monaghan

Bob Corey

Grant Dollens

Attended

Did not attend

Not required to attend

Estimated allocation of time

 5+

5%  

Performance evaluation

25% 

70% 

Remuneration policy

 Share option grant review

This report sets out information about the remuneration 
of the Directors of the Company for the year ended 
31 December 2020.

The Board, as required by the QCA Code, 
supports the principle of transparency and 
has prepared this report in order to provide 
information to shareholders on executive 
remuneration arrangements. 

The Remuneration Committee

Committee composition

The Remuneration Committee is chaired 
by Karl Monaghan and the other members 
of the Committee are Bob Corey and 
Grant Dollens.

Committee responsibilities

The Remuneration Committee’s primary 
purposes are to assist the Board in determining 
the Company’s remuneration policies, review 
the performance of the Executive Directors 
and make recommendations to the Board 
on matters relating to their remuneration 
and terms of service, the granting of share 
options, and other equity incentives.

Committee meetings

The Remuneration Committee met four 
times in the year, with the other Board 
members in attendance as appropriate.

Remuneration Committee report

The content of this report is unaudited 
unless stated.

Remuneration policy

The objective of the remuneration policy 
is to ensure that the overall remuneration 
of Executive Directors is aligned with the 
performance of the Group and preserves 
an appropriate balance of income and 
shareholder value.

Non‑executive Directors

Remuneration of the Non-executive 
Directors is determined by the Executive 
Directors. Non-executive Directors are not 
entitled to pensions, annual bonuses or 
employee benefits. They are entitled to 
participate in share option arrangements 
relating to the Company’s shares. Each of 
the Non-executive Directors has a letter of 
appointment stating his annual fee and that 
his appointment is initially for a term of three 
years, subject to re-appointment at the AGM, 
renewable for further periods of three years. 
Their appointment may be terminated with 
three months’ written notice at any time.

Directors’ remuneration

The normal remuneration arrangements for 
Executive Directors consist of basic salary 
and annual performance-related bonuses. 
In addition, they receive private healthcare. 

The Committee intends to make further 
awards under the Long-Term Incentive Plan 
(“LTIP”) during 2021. Details of any awards 
will be disclosed in next year’s Remuneration 
Committee report.

2020 annual bonus

The 2020 Bonus Plan comprised a target 
bonus based on a % of base salary. The 
Bonus Plan is based on the achievement of 
corporate financial performance measures, 
including revenue and overheads targets. 
Having regard to the performance of the 
business, the Remuneration Committee 
resolved to pay bonuses as set out on 
page 46.

Similar bonus principles will be adopted for 
2021. Performance targets and weightings 
were set by the Remuneration Committee 
at the start of the year.

44

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Directors’ interests

Details of the Directors’ shareholdings are included in the Directors’ report on page 48.

Directors’ share options 

Aggregate emoluments disclosed below do not include any amounts for the value of options to acquire ordinary shares in the Company 
granted to or held by the Directors. Details of options for Directors who served during the year are as follows:

Executive Directors

David Richards

Dr Yeturu Aahlad

Erik Miller

Non‑executive Directors

Grant Dollens

Karl Monaghan

Bob Corey

Number of

options at

1 January

2020

92,771

241,037

18,123

29,094

23,764

241,037

18,123

23,764

410,789

423,707

18,123

9,904

23,764

—

22,249

7,923

22,249

7,923

Exercise

price

£1.90

£0.10

£0.10

£0.10

£0.10

£0.10

£0.10

£0.10

£1.90

£8.39

£0.10

£0.10

£0.10

— 

£0.10

£0.10

£0.10

£0.10

Number of

Number of

Number of

options at

options 

granted

options 

exercised 1

options  31 December

lapsed

2020

Number of

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

(241,037)

(5,436)

(29,094)

—

(241,037)

(5,436)

—

—

—

(5,436)

(9,904)

—

—

(22,249)

(7,923)

(22,249)

(7,923)

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

92,771

—

12,687

—

23,764

—

12,687

23,764

410,789

423,707

12,687

—

23,764

—

—

—

—

—

1   All options were exercised on 23 July 2020 when the share price was £5.00. Total gains on share options exercised were £2,929,000.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

45

Corporate governanceRemuneration Committee and remuneration report continued
Karl Monaghan, Chairman of the Remuneration Committee

Remuneration Committee report continued

Directors’ remuneration (audited)

Executive Directors

David Richards

Erik Miller

Dr Yeturu Aahlad

Non‑executive Directors

Grant Dollens

Karl Monaghan

Bob Corey

Payment 

Salary/fees

currency

’000

Bonus ²

’000

Benefits ¹

’000

$

$

$

£

£

£

501

250

150

40

40

50

375

125

—

—

—

—

34

30

21

—

—

—

31 December

31 December

2020

Total

’000

910

405

171

40

40

50

2019

Total

’000

896

402

170

40

40

50

1  Benefits include the provision of private health insurance for Executive Directors and their immediate families. 

2  In 2019 50% of bonus due for David Richards and Erik Miller is to be settled via RSUs which have a one-year vesting period.

The total Directors’ remuneration for the period ended 31 December 2020, in US dollars, was $5,433,000 (2019: $1,637,000) including gains 
on share options exercised.

Approval

This report was approved by the Directors and signed by order of the Board.

Karl Monaghan 
Chairman of the Remuneration Committee
4 May 2021

46

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

Directors’ report
Erik Miller, Chief Financial Officer

The Directors present their report and the 
audited financial statements for the year 
ended 31 December 2020 in accordance 
with the Companies (Jersey) Law 1991. 
Particulars of important events affecting 
the Group, together with the factors likely to 
affect its future development, performance 
and position, are set out in the Strategic 
report on pages 6 to 31, which is incorporated 
into this report by reference together with 
the Corporate governance report on pages 
37 to 40. In addition, this report should be 
read in conjunction with information 
concerning employee share schemes, 
which can be found in the Remuneration 
Committee report on pages 44 to 46 and 
in Note 13 to the financial statements, and 
which is incorporated by way of cross-
reference into the Directors’ report. 

Principal activity

The principal activity of the Group is the 
development and provision of global 
collaboration software.

Business review and future 
developments

A review of the Group’s operations and 
future developments is covered in the 
Strategic report section of the Annual Report 
and Accounts on pages 6 to 31. This report 
includes sections on strategy and markets 
and considers key risks and key 
performance indicators.

Financial results

Directors

Details of the Group’s financial results are 
set out in the consolidated statement of 
profit or loss and other comprehensive income 
and other components on pages 55 to 87.

Dividends

The Directors do not recommend the 
payment of a dividend (2019: $nil).

Going concern

The Company’s business activities, together 
with risk factors which potentially affect its 
future development, performance or position, 
can be found in the Strategic report on pages 
6 to 31. Details of the Company’s financial 
position and its cash flows are outlined in 
the Financial review on pages 26 and 27. 

After making reasonable enquiries and 
following a share subscription during the 
year which raised $24.9m of gross proceeds 
with another two share subscriptions after 
the end of the year for total proceeds of $42.5m, 
the Board has an expectation that the Group 
and the Company have adequate financial 
resources together with a strong business 
model to ensure they continue to operate for 
the foreseeable future. Accordingly, the 
Directors have adopted the going concern 
basis in preparing the financial statements. 
This is described in more detail in Note 2(b).

Annual General Meeting (“AGM”)

On pages 89 to 92 is the notice of the 
Company’s ninth AGM to be held at 10am on 
16 June 2021 at the UK Company’s offices, 
Castle House, 1–13 Angel Street, 
Sheffield S3 8LN. 

The Directors who served on the Board and 
on Board Committees during the year are 
set out on pages 32 and 33. One-third of the 
Directors are required to retire at the AGM 
and can offer themselves for re-election. 

Information on Directors’ remuneration and 
share option rights is given in the Remuneration 
Committee report on pages 44 to 46.

Directors’ indemnity arrangements

The Directors benefited from qualifying third 
party indemnity provisions in place during the 
financial year and at the date of this report. 
Other than this, and with the exception 
of employment contracts between each 
Executive Director and the Group, at no 
time during the year did any Director 
hold a material interest in any contract 
of significance with the Group or any of its 
subsidiary undertakings. The Group has 
purchased and maintained throughout 
the year Directors’ and officers’ liability 
insurance in respect of all Group companies. 

None of the Directors had any interest in 
the share capital of any subsidiary company. 
Further details of options held by the Directors 
are set out in the Remuneration Committee 
report on pages 44 to 46.

The middle market price of the Company’s 
ordinary shares on 31 December 2020 was 
464.50 pence and the range during the year 
was 390.00 pence to 820.00 pence, with an 
average price of 518.96 pence.

Significant shareholders

The Company is informed that, at 27 April 2021 (the latest practicable date prior to publication), individual registered shareholdings of more 
than 3% of the Company’s issued share capital were as follows:

Grant Dollens1

Lombard Odier Asset Management (Europe) Limited

Davis Capital Partners, LLC

Invesco Ltd. 

Conifer Capital Management

Dr Yeturu Aahlad

David Richards

Ross Creek Capital Management, LLC

% of issued

ordinary

share

capital

Number

of shares

7,226,219

12.15%

5,428,254

5,224,671

5,088,517

3,317,915

2,477,016

2,157,264

2,025,000

9.12%

8.78%

8.55%

5.58%

4.16%

3.63%

3.40%

1   Of which 526,384 shares (0.88%) are held by Grant Dollens personally and 1,921,988 shares (3.23%) are held by Global Frontier Partners, LP and 4,777,847 
(8.03%) are held by Global Frontier Technology Opportunity Fund, LP, in which Grant Dollens is interested (Grant Dollens is currently Managing Member at 
Global Frontier Investments, LLC, a US-based investment manager, and Portfolio Manager for Global Frontier Partners, LP, a shareholder in WANdisco).

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

47

Corporate governanceAuditor

As recommended by the Audit Committee, 
a resolution for the re-appointment of BDO 
LLP as auditor of the Company is to be 
proposed at the forthcoming AGM.

Audit information 

Each of the Directors at the date of the 
Directors’ report confirms that, so far 
as he is aware, there is no relevant audit 
information of which the Company’s 
auditor is unaware and he has taken all the 
reasonable steps that he ought to have taken 
as a Director to make himself aware of any 
relevant audit information and to establish 
that the Company’s auditor is aware of 
the information. 

Subsequent events

On 9 March 2021 the Group announced a 
new subscription of shares to an existing 
shareholder for 4,864,480 new ordinary 
shares of 10 pence each in the Company 
at a price of 446 pence raising gross 
proceeds of $30.0m. 

In addition, on 10 March 2021 the Group 
announced the placing (which was approved 
by General Meeting on 29 March 2021) for 
804,972 new ordinary shares of 10 pence 
each in the Company together with the 
subscription of 1,216,120 new ordinary shares 
of 10 pence each at a price of 446 pence 
(a discount of 0.4% on the closing share 
price on 9 March 2021) raising gross 
proceeds of $12.5m.

The Directors’ report has been approved 
by the Board of Directors on 4 May 2021. 

Signed on behalf of the Board.

Erik Miller
Chief Financial Officer
4 May 2021

Directors’ report continued
Erik Miller, Chief Financial Officer

Directors’ shareholdings

The beneficial interests of the Directors in the share capital of the Company at 31 December 
2020 and 27 April 2021 (the latest practicable date prior to publication) were as follows:

At 31 December 2020

At 27 April 2021

% of issued

ordinary

share

capital

Number

of shares

% of issued

ordinary

share

capital

Number

of shares

2,157,264

2,477,016

1,820

4.10%

4.71%

0.00%

2,157,264

2,477,016

1,820

3.63%

4.16%

0.00%

2,361,739

64,629

22,170

4.49%

0.12%

0.04%

7,226,219

12.15%

64,629

22,170

0.11%

0.04%

Executive

David Richards

Dr Yeturu Aahlad

Erik Miller

Non‑executive

Grant Dollens1

Karl Monaghan

Bob Corey

1   Of which 526,384 shares (0.88%) are held by Grant Dollens personally and 1,921,988 shares (3.23%) 

are held by Global Frontier Partners, LP and 4,777,847 (8.03%) are held by Global Frontier Technology 
Opportunity Fund, LP, in which Grant Dollens is interested (Grant Dollens is currently Managing 
Member at Global Frontier Investments, LLC, a US-based investment manager, and Portfolio Manager 
for Global Frontier Partners, LP, a shareholder in WANdisco).

Articles of Association

Any amendments to the Articles of 
Association of the Company may be made 
by special resolution of the shareholders. 

Research and development

The Group expended $8,991,000 during 
the year (2019: $8,263,000) on research 
and development, of which $5,220,000 
(2019: $5,062,000) was capitalised within 
intangible assets and $3,771,000 (2019: 
$3,201,000) was charged to the income 
statement. In addition, an amortisation 
charge of $5,070,000 (2019: $5,284,000) 
has been recognised against previously 
capitalised costs.

Derivatives and financial instruments

The Group’s policy and exposure to 
derivatives and financial instruments 
is set out in Note 23.

Employee involvement

It is the Group’s policy to involve employees 
in its progress, development and performance. 
Applications for employment by disabled 
persons are fully considered, bearing in mind 
the respective aptitudes and abilities of the 
applicants concerned. The Group is a 
committed equal opportunities employer 
and has engaged employees with broad 
backgrounds and skills.

It is the policy of the Group that the training, 
career development and promotion of a 
disabled person should, as far as possible, 
be identical to that of a person who does not 
have a disability. In the event of members of 
staff becoming disabled, every effort is 
made to ensure that their employment with 
the Group continues.

Health and safety

The Group is committed to providing a 
safe and healthy working environment for 
all staff and contractors. The Group’s health 
and safety standard sets out the range of 
policies, procedures and systems required 
to manage risks and promote wellbeing. 

Political and charitable donations

During the year ended 31 December 2020 
the Group made political donations of $nil 
(2019: $nil) and charitable donations of 
$82,578 (2019: $10,170).

Supplier payment policy and practice

The Group does not operate a standard code 
in respect of payments to suppliers. The Group 
agrees terms of payment with suppliers 
at the start of business and then makes 
payments in accordance with contractual 
and other legal obligations.

The number of creditor days outstanding 
at 31 December 2020 was 17 days 
(2019: 19 days).

48

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

Statement of Directors’ responsibilities
In respect of the Annual Report and the financial statements

Directors’ 
responsibilities

The Directors are responsible for preparing the Annual Report 
and the Group financial statements in accordance with 
applicable law and regulations. 

Company law requires the Directors to 
prepare Group financial statements for each 
financial year. As required by the AIM Rules 
of the London Stock Exchange they are 
required to prepare the Group financial 
statements in accordance with International 
Financial Reporting Standards as adopted 
by the EU (“IFRSs as adopted by the EU”) 
and applicable law.

Under company law the Directors must not 
approve the financial statements unless they 
are satisfied that they give a true and fair 
view of the state of affairs of the Group and 
of its profit or loss for that period. In preparing 
the Group financial statements, the Directors 
are required to: 

•  select suitable accounting policies 
and then apply them consistently; 

•  make judgements and estimates that 
are reasonable, relevant and reliable; 

•  state whether they have been prepared 
in accordance with IFRSs as adopted 
by the EU; and

•  assess the Group’s ability to continue as 

a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, 
matters related to going concern and use 
the going concern basis of accounting 
unless they either intend to liquidate the 
Group or to cease operations, or have no 
realistic alternative but to do so. 

The Directors are responsible for keeping 
adequate accounting records that disclose 
with reasonable accuracy at any time the 
financial position of the Company and to 
enable them to ensure that the financial 
statements comply with the Companies 
(Jersey) Law 1991. They are responsible 
for such internal control as they determine 
is necessary to enable the preparation of 
financial statements that are free from 

material misstatement, whether due to fraud 
or error, and have general responsibility for 
taking such steps as are reasonably open 
to them to safeguard the assets of the 
Company and to prevent and detect fraud 
and other irregularities. 

The Directors are responsible for the 
maintenance and integrity of the corporate 
and financial information included on the 
Company’s website. Legislation in Jersey 
governing the preparation and dissemination 
of financial statements may differ from 
legislation in other jurisdictions.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

49

Corporate governance 
Independent auditor’s report
to the members of WANdisco plc

Opinion on the financial statements

In our opinion, the financial statements:

•  give a true and fair view of the state of the Group’s affairs as at 

31 December 2020 and of the Group’s loss for the year then ended;

•  have been properly prepared in accordance with International Financial 
Reporting Standards (IFRS) as adopted by the European Union; and

•  have been prepared in accordance with the requirements of 

Companies (Jersey) Law 1991.

We have audited the financial statements of WANdisco plc (the ‘Parent 
Company’) and its subsidiaries (the ‘Group’) for the year ended 
31 December 2020 which comprise the Consolidated statement of profit 
or loss and other comprehensive income, the Consolidated statement 
of financial position, the Consolidated statement of changes in equity, 
the Consolidated statement of cash flows and notes to the financial 
statements, including a summary of significant accounting policies. 

The financial reporting framework that has been applied in the 
preparation of the financial statements is applicable law and International 
Financial Reporting Standards (“IFRS”) as adopted by the European Union. 

Basis for opinion

We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards 
on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities 
under those standards are further described in the Auditor’s 
responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section 
of our report. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained 
is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion. 

Independence

We remain independent of the Group and the Parent Company in 
accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our 
audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRC’s 
Ethical Standard as applied to listed entities, and we have fulfilled our 
other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. 

Conclusions relating to going concern

In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the 
Directors’ use of the going concern basis of accounting in the 
preparation of the financial statements is appropriate. 

The Group continuing losses, along with other factors, including 
cash burn rate, decreasing revenue year on year, impact of COVID-19 
pandemic, are indicators that the risk associated with the Group’s 
going concern status is greater than normal. The calculations 
supporting the going concern assessment require management 
to make highly subjective judgements. We have therefore spent 
significant audit effort in assessing the appropriateness of the 
assumptions involved, and as such this has been identified as 
a Key Audit Matter.

Significant judgements and estimates related to going concern 
are disclosed in Note 2 of the consolidated financial statements.

Our response to this key audit matter, and our evaluation of the 
Directors’ assessment of the Group and the Parent Company’s ability 
to continue to adopt the going concern basis of accounting included:

•  Evaluating the key underlying assumptions used in the Group’s 
forecasts around the achievement of forecast revenue through 
robust interrogation of the forecasts and understanding how 
these were derived;

•  Assessing the Group’s historical budgeting accuracy, via a 
retrospective review of actual performance against budget 
and understanding the changes in circumstances by reviewing 
the pipeline of customers leading to the forecast revenue;

•  Analysing changes in key assumptions including a reasonably 
possible (but not unrealistic) reduction in forecast revenue to 
understand the sensitivity in the cash flow forecasts;

•  Reviewing post-balance sheet events, specifically the funding 
received as a result of the equity issued in March 2021 and the 
actual against budgeted performance of the Group in January, 
February and March 2021; and

•  Considering the appropriateness of the related disclosures against 

the requirements of the accounting standards.

Based on the work we have performed, we have not identified 
any material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that, 
individually or collectively, may cast significant doubt on the Group’s 
ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least twelve 
months from when the financial statements are authorised for issue. 

Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the Directors with respect 
to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report. 

Overview

Coverage

Key audit matters

100% (2019: 98%) of Group loss before tax
100% (2019: 100%) of Group revenue
98% (2019: 98%) of Group total assets

KAM 1 – Revenue recognition

KAM 2 – Capitalisation of development costs

KAM 3 – Carrying value of development costs

KAM 4 – Going concern

2020

2019









 
 
 
 

Materiality

Group financial statements as a whole
$350k (2019: $375k) based on 1.25% (2019: 2%) of the three-year average of loss before tax

50

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

An overview of the scope of our audit

Our Group audit was scoped by obtaining an understanding of the Group and its environment, including the Group’s system of internal control, 
and assessing the risks of material misstatement in the financial statements. We also addressed the risk of management override of internal 
controls, including assessing whether there was evidence of bias by the Directors that may have represented a risk of material misstatement.

We performed an audit of the complete financial information of three components, which we identified as significant. At the Group level, 
we also tested the consolidation process. All work was performed by the Group audit team. The components where we performed full or 
specific audit procedures accounted for 100% of Group Loss before tax, 100% of Revenue and 98% of Group total assets. For the remaining 
two components we performed other procedures, including analytical reviews, audit procedures on specific balances, testing of consolidation 
journals and intercompany elimination to respond to any potential risks of material misstatement to the Group financial statements.

Key audit matters

Key audit matters are those matters that, in our professional judgement, were of most significance in our audit of the financial statements 
of the current period and include the most significant assessed risks of material misstatement (whether or not due to fraud) that we 
identified, including those which had the greatest effect on: the overall audit strategy, the allocation of resources in the audit, and directing 
the efforts of the engagement team. These matters were addressed in the context of our audit of the financial statements as a whole, and 
in forming our opinion thereon, and we do not provide a separate opinion on these matters. In addition to the key audit matter described 
in the Conclusions relating to going concern section above, we have identified the following key audit matters.

Key audit matter

Revenue Recognition 
See Note 7 and relevant 
accounting policies 
in Note 28.

The group’s contracts with customers can 
involve multiple performance obligations. 
Therefore, revenue recognition related 
to each performance obligation requires 
judgement over the assessment of the 
separate contract performance obligations.

We assessed revenue recognition 
as a fraud risk as revenue forms the 
basis for certain of the Group’s key 
performance indicators, both in external 
communications and for management 
incentives. We identified specific risks of 
fraud and error in respect of inappropriate 
revenue recognition given the nature of 
the Group’s contracts with customers 
as follows: 

•  The recognition of revenue in the 
appropriate period, including the 
deferral, or accrual, of revenue, 
i.e. cut-off; 

•  The completeness of revenue; and 

•  Inappropriate measurement of revenue 
attributed to each deliverable within a 
contract with a customer.

We therefore considered revenue 
recognition to be a key audit matter.

How the scope of our audit addressed the key audit matter

Our audit work included the following procedures on the 
revenue recognition:

•  We evaluated management’s determination of whether the nature 
of the Group’s products results in the provision of a deliverable at 
a point in time or over a contractual term. This included the 
assessment of new or one-off transactions;

•  For a sample of customers, we tested all revenue transactions 

in FY2020 with the customers to (1) ensure a proper identification 
of deliverables; (2) proper and consistent allocation of the contract 
price to the performance obligations satisfied over time and at a 
point in time; (3) for deliverables, for which revenue is earned over 
time, accurate calculation of the revenue and deferred revenue 
based on the progress of the contract, (4) consistent application 
of the revenue recognition policy, and (5) appropriate period of 
revenue recognition with reference to contractual documents;

•  We performed a search for revenue recorded through journal entries 

and tested for any unusual entries, or entries that were posted 
outside of normal business processes. We investigated any unusual 
items to establish whether any sale had occurred in the financial 
year to support the revenue recognised;

•  We performed certain specific procedures to address the risk of 
management override, which included testing of unusual, new or 
significant transactions or contractual terms;

•  We tested the completeness of revenue by ensuring all projects  

won per the client management system tied back to the underlying 
accounting records;

•  We obtained management’s analysis for a sample of contracts and 
assessed the Group’s estimate of the fair value attributed to each 
identified performance obligation within each sampled contract  
and the timing of revenue recognition for each deliverable; and

•  We also considered the adequacy of the Group’s disclosures 

relating to revenue recognition in Notes 7 and 28.

Key observations 
Based on procedures performed, we consider that revenue has been recognised appropriately.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

51

Financial statementsIndependent auditor’s report continued
to the members of WANdisco plc

An overview of the scope of our audit continued

Key audit matters continued

Key audit matter

Capitalisation of 
development costs 
See Note 15 and 
relevant accounting 
policies in Note 28.

The Directors apply judgement in the 
classification of expenditure as capital 
in nature rather than ongoing operational 
expenditure. The significant judgement 
and related risk is that internal costs are 
capitalised that should be expensed 
under the requirements of IAS 38 – 
Intangible assets.

Due to the judgements involved on 
this area we considered it to be a key 
audit matter.

How the scope of our audit addressed the key audit matter

Our audit work included the following procedures on capitalisation 
of development costs:

•  For a sample of items capitalised during the year we assessed the 
nature cost and evaluated the appropriateness of its classification 
as capitalised costs, having regard to IAS 38 requirements. This 
included assessing whether major projects are technically feasible 
and commercially viable by reference to existing orders and future 
forecasts given the core technology;

•  We agreed the existence of a sample of employees to contracts 

including verifying their salary costs, identifying roles and 
responsibilities to determine if the portion of costs capitalised 
reflects the work performed on the systems; and 

•  We considered the appropriateness of the related disclosures 

provided in the Group financial statements.

Key observations 
Based on procedures performed, consider the judgements made by management in capitalising development costs were reasonable and 
the development costs capitalised were in line with the requirements of IAS 38.

Carrying value of 
development costs 
See Note 15 and relevant 
accounting policies 
in Note 28. 

The Group continues to be loss making 
and as result, the Group has tested 
previously capitalised development costs 
for impairment. There remains a degree 
of uncertainty around whether expected 
revenues and profits will be realised and 
be sufficient to ensure recoverability 
of the assets recognised on the 
balance sheet. 

Our audit work included the following procedures on carrying value 
of development costs:

•  We performed audit procedures on the reasonableness of the 
growth rates, margin and the discount rate applied including 
comparison to economic and industry forecasts where 
appropriate with assistance from our BDO valuation specialist;

•  We assessed the appropriateness of the key assumptions used 

in the FY21 forecast including new customer acquisition (pipeline) 
to supporting evidence, upsell/add-ons and level of loss of 
customers by assessing these against the results achieved in FY20;

•  We performed sensitivity analysis of management’s model in respect 
of the key assumptions such as discount rate and growth rates to 
ensure there was sufficient headroom in their calculation; and

•  We considered the appropriateness of the related disclosures 

provided in the Group financial statements.

Key observations 
Based on procedures performed, we considered that management’s judgements and disclosures were appropriate.

Our application of materiality

We apply the concept of materiality both in planning and performing 
our audit, and in evaluating the effect of misstatements. We consider 
materiality to be the magnitude by which misstatements, including 
omissions, could influence the economic decisions of reasonable 
users that are taken on the basis of the financial statements. 

In order to reduce to an appropriately low level the probability that 
any misstatements exceed materiality, we use a lower materiality 
level, performance materiality, to determine the extent of testing 
needed. Importantly, misstatements below these levels will not 
necessarily be evaluated as immaterial as we also take account 
of the nature of identified misstatements, and the particular 
circumstances of their occurrence, when evaluating their effect 
on the financial statements as a whole. 

52

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

Our application of materiality continued

Based on our professional judgement, we determined materiality for the financial statements as a whole and performance materiality as follows:

Materiality

Basis for determining 
materiality

2020
$k

350

2019
$k

375

1.25% of three-year average loss before tax. We have 
lowered the percentage used as it provides a more 
stable measure year on year of performance from a 
financial and operational perspective for the Group.

2% of three-year average loss before tax.

Rationale for the 
benchmark applied

Suitable benchmark to address the performance of a 
non-profitable business.

Suitable benchmark to address the performance 
of a non-profitable business.

Performance materiality 227

Basis for determining 
performance materiality

65% of materiality.

244

65% of materiality.

In reaching our conclusion on the level of performance materiality 
to be applied the main factor considered was our assessment of the 
Group’s internal controls and the impact of these on our proposed 
audit strategy.

Component materiality

We set materiality for each component of the Group based 
on a percentage of between 38% and 65% of Group materiality 
dependent on the size and our assessment of the risk of material 
misstatement of that component. Component materiality ranged 
from $134k to $250k. In the audit of each component, we further 
applied performance materiality levels of 65% of the component 
materiality to our testing to ensure that the risk of errors exceeding 
component materiality was appropriately mitigated.

Reporting threshold 

We agreed with the Audit Committee that we would report to them 
all individual audit differences in excess of $17,000 (2019: $19,000). 
We also agreed to report differences below this threshold that, 
in our view, warranted reporting on qualitative grounds.

Other Companies (Jersey) Law 1991 reporting

Other information

The directors are responsible for the other information. The other 
information comprises the information included in the annual report 
and accounts 2020 other than the financial statements and our 
auditor’s report thereon. Our opinion on the financial statements 
does not cover the other information and, except to the extent 
otherwise explicitly stated in our report, we do not express any form 
of assurance conclusion thereon. Our responsibility is to read the 
other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other 
information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements 
or our knowledge obtained in the course of the audit, or otherwise 
appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material 
inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required 
to determine whether this gives rise to a material misstatement in 
the financial statements themselves. If, based on the work we have 
performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this 
other information, we are required to report that fact.

We have nothing to report in this regard.

Based on the responsibilities described below and our work performed during the course of the audit, we are required by the Companies 
(Jersey) Law 1991 and ISAs (UK) to report on certain opinions and matters as described below. 

Matters on which we 
are required to report 
by exception

We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters where the Companies (Jersey) Law 1991 requires  
us to report to you if, in our opinion:

•  proper accounting records have not been kept by the Group or returns adequate for our audit have not been 

received from branches not visited by us; or

•  the Parent Company financial statements are not in agreement with the accounting records and returns; 

or we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

53

Financial statementsIndependent auditor’s report continued
to the members of WANdisco plc

Responsibilities of Directors

As explained more fully in the Statement of Directors’ 
responsibilities, the Directors are responsible for the preparation of 
the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true 
and fair view, and for such internal control as the Directors determine 
is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that 
are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.

In preparing the financial statements, the Directors are responsible 
for assessing the Group’s and the Parent Company’s ability to 
continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters 
related to going concern and using the going concern basis of 
accounting unless the Directors either intend to liquidate the Group 
or the Parent Company or to cease operations, or have no realistic 
alternative but to do so.

We communicated relevant identified laws and regulations and 
potential fraud risks to all engagement team members and remained 
alert to any indications of fraud or non-compliance with laws and 
regulations throughout the audit.

Our audit procedures were designed to respond to risks of material 
misstatement in the financial statements, recognising that the risk of 
not detecting a material misstatement due to fraud is higher than the 
risk of not detecting one resulting from error, as fraud may involve 
deliberate concealment by, for example, forgery, misrepresentations 
or through collusion. There are inherent limitations in the audit 
procedures performed and the further removed non-compliance 
with laws and regulations is from the events and transactions 
reflected in the financial statements, the less likely we are to 
become aware of it.

A further description of our responsibilities is available on 
the Financial Reporting Council’s website at: www.frc.org.uk/
auditorsresponsibilities. This description forms part of our 
auditor’s report.

Use of our report

This report is made solely to the Parent Company’s members, as 
a body, in accordance with Article 113A of the Companies (Jersey) 
Law 1991. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might 
state to the Parent Company’s members those matters we are 
required to state to them in an auditor’s report and for no other 
purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept 
or assume responsibility to anyone other than the Parent Company 
and the Parent Company’s members as a body, for our audit work, 
for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.

David Butcher 
For and on behalf of BDO LLP, Chartered Accountants
London, UK 
4 May 2021

BDO LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and 
Wales (with registered number OC305127).

Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial 
statements

Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the 
financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, 
whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor’s report that 
includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance, 
but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with 
ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. 
Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered 
material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably 
be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken 
on the basis of these financial statements.

Extent to which the audit was capable of detecting 
irregularities, including fraud

Irregularities, including fraud, are instances of non-compliance 
with laws and regulations. We design procedures in line with our 
responsibilities, outlined above, to detect material misstatements 
in respect of irregularities, including fraud. The extent to which our 
procedures are capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud 
is detailed below:

•  We obtained an understanding of the legal and regulatory 

frameworks that are applicable to the Group and the relevant tax 
compliance regulations in the jurisdictions in which the Group 
operates, of which the key ones relate to the reporting framework 
(IFRS and the Companies (Jersey) Law 1991). We made enquiries 
of management and corroborated our enquiries through our review 
of board minutes and papers provided to the Audit Committee and 
attendance at all meetings of the Audit Committee, as well as 
consideration of the results of our audit procedures across the Group.

•  Our procedures involved journal entry testing, with a focus on 
journals indicating large or unusual transactions based on our 
understanding of the business and manual consolidation entries; 
and challenging the assumptions and judgements made by 
management in respect of significant accounting estimates 
as referred to in the key audit matters section above.

•  In areas impacting Group key performance indicators or 

management remuneration, we performed audit procedures to 
address each identified fraud risk, as described in the revenue 
recognition key audit matter section above.

54

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

Consolidated statement of profit or loss and other comprehensive income
For the year ended 31 December 2020

Continuing operations

Revenue

Cost of sales

Gross profit

Operating expenses

Operating loss

Finance income

Finance costs

Net finance costs

Loss before tax

Income tax 

Loss for the year

Other comprehensive income

Items that are or may be reclassified subsequently to profit or loss:

Foreign operations – foreign currency translation differences

Other comprehensive income for the year, net of tax

31 December
2020

31 December
2019

Note

6,7

8 

Total

$’000

10,532 

(1,066)

9,466 

8,9

(43,373)

Total

$’000

16,155 

(1,186)

14,969 

(42,148)

9 

(33,907)

(27,179)

10 

10 

10 

305 

(2,183)

604 

(2,574)

(1,878)

(1,970)

(35,785)

(29,149)

11 

1,453 

885 

(34,332)

(28,264)

3,872

3,872

1,765

1,765

Total comprehensive income for the year attributable to owners of the parent

(30,460)

(26,499)

Loss per share

Basic and diluted loss per share

12

($0.68)

($0.63)

The notes on pages 59 to 87 are an integral part of these consolidated financial statements.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

55

Financial statements 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Consolidated statement of financial position 
At 31 December 2020

Assets

Property, plant and equipment

Intangible assets

Other non-current assets

Non-current assets

Trade and other receivables

Cash and cash equivalents

Current assets

Total assets

Equity

Share capital

Share premium

Translation reserve

Merger reserve

Retained earnings

Total equity

Liabilities

Loans and borrowings

Deferred income

Deferred tax liabilities

Non-current liabilities

Current tax liabilities

Loans and borrowings

Trade and other payables

Deferred income

Current liabilities

Total liabilities

Total equity and liabilities

31 December
2020

31 December
2019

Note

$’000

$’000

14

15

16

17

18

2,895

5,027

2,215

3,735

4,877

3,016

10,137

11,628

10,142

21,039

8,545

23,354

31,181

31,899

41,318

43,527

19(a)

7,641

7,097

172,868

149,336

19(c)

19(c)

(1,711)

1,247

(5,583)

1,247

(150,851)

(121,922)

29,194

30,175

20

21

11

20

22

21

1,778

659

4

2,889

1,188

4

2,441

4,081

12

1,115

5,462

3,094

66

2,212

4,371

2,622

9,683

9,271

12,124

13,352

41,318

43,527

The notes on pages 59 to 87 are an integral part of these consolidated financial statements.

The financial statements on pages 55 to 87 were approved by the Board of Directors on 4 May 2021 and signed on its behalf by:

David Richards  
Chairman and CEO 

Erik Miller

  Chief Financial Officer

Company registered number: 110497

56

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Consolidated statement of changes in equity
For the year ended 31 December 2020

Attributable to owners of the Company

Share

capital

$’000

Share

Translation

premium

$’000

reserve

$’000

Merger

reserve

$’000

Retained

earnings

$’000

Total

equity

$’000

Note

Balance at 31 December 2018

6,361

115,909

(7,348)

1,247

(102,365)

13,804

Total comprehensive income for the year 

Loss for the year 

Other comprehensive income for the year

Total comprehensive income for the year

Transactions with owners of the Company

Contributions and distributions

Equity-settled share-based payment

13(d)

Proceeds from share placing

Share options exercised

—

—

—

—

706

30

—

—

—

—

33,085

342

Total transactions with owners of the Company

736

33,427

—

1,765

1,765

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

(28,264)

(28,264)

—

1,765

(28,264)

(26,499)

8,707

—

—

8,707

33,791

372

8,707

42,870

Balance at 31 December 2019

7,097

149,336

(5,583)

1,247

(121,922)

30,175

Total comprehensive income for the year 

Loss for the year 

Other comprehensive income for the year

Total comprehensive income for the year

Transactions with owners of the Company

Contributions and distributions

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

3,872

3,872

Equity-settled share-based payment

13(d)

Share options exercised

Proceeds from share placing

Total transactions with owners of the Company

—

162

382

—

106

23,426

544

23,532

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

(34,332)

(34,332)

—

3,872

(34,332)

(30,460)

5,403

—

—

5,403

268

23,808

5,403

29,479

Balance at 31 December 2020

7,641

172,868

(1,711)

1,247

(150,851)

29,194

The notes on pages 59 to 87 are an integral part of these consolidated financial statements.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

57

Financial statements 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Consolidated statement of cash flows
For the year ended 31 December 2020

Cash flows from operating activities

Loss for the year

Adjustments for:

– Depreciation of property, plant and equipment

– Amortisation of intangible assets

– Net finance costs/(income)

– Income tax

– Foreign exchange

– Equity-settled share-based payment 

Changes in:

– Trade and other receivables 

– Trade and other payables

– Deferred income

Net working capital change

Cash used in operating activities

Interest paid

Income tax received

Net cash used in operating activities

Cash flows from investing activities

Interest received

Acquisition of property, plant and equipment

Development expenditure 

Net cash used in investing activities

Cash flows from financing activities

Proceeds from issue of share capital

Repayment of bank loan

Payment of lease liabilities 

Net cash from financing activities

Net (decrease)/increase in cash and cash equivalents

Cash and cash equivalents at 1 January

Effect of movements in exchange rates on cash held

Note

2020

$’000

 2019

$’000

(34,332)

(28,264)

14

15

11

13(d)

1,203

5,070

69

(1,453)

3,773

5,403

1,101

5,701

(77)

(885)

1,869

8,707

(20,267)

(11,848)

339

910

(57)

(1,203)

(562)

(508)

1,192

(2,273)

(19,075)

(14,121)

(294)

662

(446)

807

(18,707)

(13,760)

10

15

21

(307)

258

(841)

(5,220)

(5,062)

(5,506)

(5,645)

24,076

34,163

20(c)

20(c)

(1,666)

(1,667)

(595)

(502)

21,815

31,994

(2,398)

23,354

83

12,589

10,757

8

Cash and cash equivalents at 31 December

18

21,039

23,354

The notes on pages 59 to 87 are an integral part of these consolidated financial statements.

58

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Notes to the consolidated financial statements
For the year ended 31 December 2020

1. Reporting entity

WANdisco plc (“the Company”) is a public limited company incorporated and domiciled in Jersey. The Company’s ordinary shares are traded 
on AIM. The Company’s registered office is 47 Esplanade, St. Helier, Jersey JE1 0BD. These consolidated financial statements comprise the 
Company and its subsidiaries (together referred to as the “Group”). The Group is primarily involved in the development and provision of global 
collaboration software (see Note 6).

2. Basis of accounting

These consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (“IFRSs”) 
as adopted by the EU. They were authorised for issue by the Company’s Board of Directors on 4 May 2021. 

Under Article 105(11) of the Companies (Jersey) Law 1991, a parent Company preparing consolidated financial statements need not present 
solus (parent Company only) financial information, unless required to do so by an ordinary resolution of the Company’s members. 

(a) Accounting policies

Details of the Group’s accounting policies are included in Note 28. The policies have been consistently applied to all the years presented, 
unless otherwise stated.

The following new standards and amendments to standards that are effective for the first time for the financial year beginning 1 January 2020 
have been adopted:

•  Definition of a Business (Amendments to IFRS 3);

•  Definition of Material (Amendments to IAS 1 and IAS 8);

•  Interest Rate Benchmark Reform (Amendments to IFRS 9, IAS 39 and IFRS 7);

•  COVID-19-Related Rent Concessions (Amendment to IFRS 16); and

•  Amendments to References to the Conceptual Framework in IFRS Standards.

These amendments to standards have not had a material impact on these Financial statements.

(b) Going concern basis of accounting

The consolidated financial statements have been prepared on a going concern basis, which assumes that the Group will be able to meet the 
mandatory repayment terms of the banking facilities as disclosed in Note 20.

As at 31 December 2020 the Group had net assets of $29.2m (31 December 2019: $30.2m), including cash of $21.0m (2019: $23.4m) as 
set out in the consolidated statement of financial position, with a debt facility fully drawn of $0.6m (2019: debt facility fully drawn of $2.2m). 
In the year ended 31 December 2020, the Group incurred a loss before tax of $35.8m (2019: $29.1m) and net cash outflows before financing 
of $24.2m (2019: $19.4m).

During 2020, the performance of the Group declined, with revenue reducing by 35% to $10.5m (2019: $16.2m) and operating loss increasing 
to $33.9m (2019: $27.2m).

The Directors have prepared a detailed budget and forecast of the Group’s expected performance over a period covering at least the next 
twelve months from the date of the approval of these financial statements. As well as modelling the realisation of the sales pipeline, these 
forecasts also cover a number of scenarios and sensitivities in order for the Board to satisfy itself that the Group remains within its current 
cash facilities, details of which are included in Note 20. The cash flow model includes the injection of $42.5m of cash which was raised 
following the year end ($30m on 9 March 2021 and $12.5m approved by the shareholders on 29 March 2021).

Whilst the Directors are confident in the Group’s ability to grow revenue, the Board’s sensitivity modelling (which considered the impact of 
Brexit and COVID-19) shows that the Group can remain within its facilities in the event that revenue growth is delayed (i.e. revenue does not 
increase from the level reported in 2020) for a period in excess of twelve months. The Directors’ financial forecasts and operational planning 
and modelling also include the actions, under the control of the Group, that they could take to further significantly reduce the cost base 
during the coming year in the event that longer-term revenues were set to remain consistent with the level reported in 2020. On the basis 
of this financial and operational modelling, the Directors believe that the Group has the capability and the operational agility to react quickly, 
cut further costs from the business and ensure that the cost base of the business is aligned with its revenue and funding scale.

As a consequence, the Directors have a reasonable expectation that the Group can continue to operate within its existing facilities and be 
able to meet its commitments and discharge its liabilities in the normal course of business for a period not less than twelve months from 
the date of approval of these financial statements. Accordingly, they continue to adopt the going concern basis in preparing the Group 
financial statements.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

59

Financial statementsNotes to the consolidated financial statements continued
For the year ended 31 December 2020

3. Functional and presentational currency

See accounting policy in Note 28(b).

The consolidated financial statements are presented in US dollars, as the revenue for the Group is predominantly derived in this currency. 
Billings to the Group’s customers during the year by WANdisco, Inc. were all in US dollars with certain costs being incurred by WANdisco 
International Limited in sterling and WANdisco, Pty Ltd in Australian dollars. All financial information has been rounded to the nearest 
thousand US dollars unless otherwise stated.

4. Use of judgements and estimates

See accounting policy in Note 28(c).

In preparing these consolidated financial statements, management has made judgements and estimates that affect the application of the 
Group’s accounting policies and the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, income and expenses. Actual results may differ from these estimates.

Estimates and underlying assumptions are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Revisions to estimates are recognised prospectively. 

(a) Judgements

Information about judgements made in applying accounting policies that have the most significant effect on the amounts recognised 
in the financial statements is included in the following notes: 

•  Note 7 – revenue recognition.

•  Note 15 – development costs.

(b) Assumptions and estimation uncertainties

Information about assumptions and estimation uncertainties at 31 December 2020 that have a significant risk of resulting in a material 
adjustment to the carrying amounts of assets and liabilities in the next financial year is included in the following notes:

•  Note 7 – revenue recognition: allocation of value to maintenance and support element of subscription arrangements.

•  Note 15 – impairment test of intangible assets: key assumptions underlying recoverable amounts, including the recoverability 

of development costs.

(c) Measurement of fair values 

A number of the Group’s accounting policies and disclosures require the measurement of fair values, for both financial and non-financial 
assets and liabilities. 

Further information about the assumptions made in measuring fair values is included in the following note:

•  Note 13 – share-based payment.

5. Alternative performance measures

The Group uses a number of alternative performance measures (“APMs”) which are non-IFRS measures to monitor the performance of its 
operations. The Group believes these APMs provide useful historical financial information to help investors and other stakeholders evaluate 
the performance of the business and are measures commonly used by certain investors for evaluating the performance of the Group. In 
particular, the Group uses APMs which reflect the underlying performance on the basis that this provides a more relevant focus on the core 
business performance of the Group and aligns with our KPIs. Adjusted results exclude certain items because if included, these items could 
distort the understanding of our performance for the year and the comparability between periods. The Group has been using the following 
APMs on a consistent basis and they are defined and reconciled as follows:

•  Cash overheads: Operating expenses adjusted for: depreciation, amortisation, capitalisation of development expenditure and equity-settled 

share-based payment. See Note 9 for a reconciliation.

•  Adjusted EBITDA: Operating loss adjusted for: depreciation, amortisation and equity-settled share-based payment. See Note 9 

for a reconciliation.

60

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

6. Operating segments

See accounting policy in Note 28(e).

The Directors consider there to be one operating segment, being that of development and sale of licences for software and related 
maintenance and support.

(a) Geographical segments

The Group recognises revenue in three geographical regions based on the location of customers, as set out in the following table:

Revenue

North America – USA

North America – other

Europe

Rest of the world – China

Rest of the world – South Africa

Rest of the world – other

2020

$’000 

8,635

34

1,096

412

62

293

2019

$’000 

6,551

44

2,152

5,036

2,088

284

10,532

16,155

Management makes no allocation of costs, assets or liabilities between these segments since all trading activities are operated as a single 
business unit.

(b) Major products

The Group’s core patented technology, DConE, enables the replication of data. This core technology is contained in all the Group’s products. 

(c) Major customers

Customer 1

Customer 2

Customer 3

Customer 4

Customer 5

2020

% of
revenue

24%

10%

3%

1%

1%

2020

$’000
revenue

2,515

1,070

265

62

137

2019

% of
revenue

—

—

19%

13% 

11%

2019

$’000
revenue

—

—

3,117

2,088

1,857

No other single customers contributed 10% or more to the Group’s revenue (2019: nil).

7. Revenue

See accounting policy in Note 28(d).

The Group generates revenue primarily from the sale of global collaboration software to its customers; see Note 6.

(a) Split of revenue by timing of revenue recognition

Revenue

Licences and services transferred at a point in time

Services transferred over time

2020

$’000 

7,607

2,925

2019

$’000 

12,596

3,559

10,532

16,155

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

61

Financial statements 
 
 
 
 
 
Notes to the consolidated financial statements continued
For the year ended 31 December 2020

7. Revenue continued

(b) Contract balances

The following table provides information about receivables, contract assets and liabilities from contracts with customers.

Receivables, which are included in “Other non-current assets – accrued income”

Receivables, which are included in “Trade and other receivables – accrued income”

Contract liabilities, which are included in “Deferred income – non-current”

Contract liabilities, which are included in “Deferred income – current”

Total contract assets

At 1 January

Excess of revenue recognised over rights to cash being recognised in the period

Impairment of contract assets

Interest on contract assets

Transfers in the period from contract assets to trade receivables 

At 31 December

Total contract liabilities

At 1 January 

Amount invoiced in advance of performance and not recognised as revenue during the period

Amount included in contract liabilities that was recognised as revenue during the period

At 31 December

2020

$’000 

2,124

1,480

(659)

(3,094)

2020

$’000 

5,790

758

(368)

284

2019

$’000 

2,826

2,964

(1,188)

(2,622)

2019

$’000 

4,994

3,103

—

346

(2,860)

(2,653)

3,604

5,790

2020

$’000 

3,810

2,565

2019

$’000 

4,318

2,533

(2,622)

(3,041)

3,753

3,810

(c) Performance obligations and revenue recognition policies

Revenue is measured based on the consideration specified in a contract with a customer. The Group recognises revenue when it transfers 
control over a good or service to a customer.

Revenue is recognised either when the performance obligation in the contract has been performed (so “point in time” recognition) 
or “over time” as control of the performance obligation is transferred to the customer.

8. Expenses

(a) Expenses by nature

Cost of sales

Staff costs

Development costs capitalised

Amortisation of development costs

Amortisation of other intangible assets

Depreciation of property, plant and equipment

Auditor’s remuneration

Other expenses

Operating expenses

Total cost of sales and operating expenses 

Note

2020

$’000 

2019

$’000 

15

15

15

14

8(b)

1,066

1,186

27,570

26,624

(5,220)

(5,062)

5,070

—

1,203

193

5,284

417

1,101

180

14,557

13,604

43,373

42,148

44,439

43,334

Included in staff costs above are $326,000 (2019: $284,000) relating to payments made to defined contribution plans.

62

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
8. Expenses continued

(b) Auditor’s remuneration

Audit of these financial statements

Amounts receivable by auditor in respect of:

Audit of financial statements of subsidiaries pursuant to legislation

2020

$’000 

135

58

193

2019

$’000 

126

54

180

9. Adjusted EBITDA and cash overheads

Management has presented the performance measures “Adjusted EBITDA” and “Cash overheads” because it monitors these performance 
measures at a consolidated level and it believes that these measures are relevant to an understanding of the Group’s financial performance. 
Adjusted EBITDA and cash overheads are not defined performance measures in IFRS. The Group’s definition of adjusted EBITDA and cash 
overheads may not be comparable with similarly titled performance measures and disclosures by other entities. 

(a) Reconciliation of operating loss to “Adjusted EBITDA”

Operating loss

Adjusted for:

Amortisation and depreciation

Equity-settled share-based payment

Adjusted EBITDA

Development expenditure capitalised

Adjusted EBITDA including development expenditure

(b) Reconciliation of operating expenses to “Cash overheads”

Operating expenses

Adjusted for:

Amortisation and depreciation

Equity-settled share-based payment

Development expenditure capitalised

Cash overheads

Note

2020

$’000 

 2019

$’000 

(33,907)

(27,179)

13(d)

6,273

5,403

6,802

8,707

(22,231)

(11,670)

15

(5,220)

(5,062)

(27,451)

(16,732)

Note

2020

$’000 

 2019

$’000 

8(a)

(43,373)

(42,148)

6,273

5,403

6,802

8,707

(5,220)

(5,062)

13(d)

15

(36,917)

(31,701)

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

63

Financial statements 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Notes to the consolidated financial statements continued
For the year ended 31 December 2020

10. Net finance costs

See accounting policy in Note 28(j).

Interest income on cash and cash equivalents

Interest income on non-current assets

Net foreign exchange gain

Finance income

Net foreign exchange loss

Interest payable on bank borrowings

Finance charges

Leases (interest portion)

Loan amortisation costs

Finance costs

Net finance costs

2020

$’000 

21

284

—

305

2019

$’000 

258

346

—

604

(1,809)

(2,047)

(71)

(65)

(202)

(36)

(237)

—

(209)

(81)

(2,183)

(2,574)

(1,878)

(1,970)

The net foreign exchange loss arose on sterling-denominated intercompany balances. These balances were retranslated at the closing 
exchange rate at 31 December 2020, which was 1.36, a 3.5% increase compared to the rate of 1.31 at 31 December 2019. The loss on 
intercompany balances in the Consolidated statement of profit or loss is offset by an equivalent exchange gain on the retranslation of the 
intercompany balances, which is included in the retranslation of net assets of foreign operations, included in the other comprehensive income.

11. Income tax

See accounting policy in Note 28(k).

(a) Amounts recognised in profit or loss

Current tax expense

Current year

Changes in estimates related to prior year

Income tax

2020

$’000 

2019

$’000 

1,194

259

1,453

636

249

885

64

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

 
 
 
 
 
 
11. Income tax continued

(b) Reconciliation of effective tax rate

Loss before tax from continuing operations

Tax using the Company’s domestic tax rate

Effect of tax rates in foreign jurisdictions

Tax effect of:

Non-deductible expenses

Tax exempt expenses

R&D tax credits

Losses not recognised for current or deferred tax

Changes in estimates related to prior year

2020

%

21%

0%

(2%)

(1%)

1%

2020

$’000

35,785

7,515

(76)

(832)

(311)

523

2019

%

21%

0%

(5%)

(1%)

1%

2019

$’000

29,149

6,121

(61)

(1,476)

(317)

351

(16%)

(5,625)

(14%)

(3,982)

1%

4%

259

1,453

1%

3%

249

885

Non-taxable expenses reflects the tax impact of the foreign exchange translation loss included in loss before tax.

The changes in estimates related to prior year of $259k (2019: $249k) includes an additional amount now recognised in respect of research 
and development tax credits relating to prior year of $235k (2019: $249k).

(c) Factors affecting the current and future tax charges

The Finance Act 2016 reduced the corporation tax rate to 17% with effect from 1 April 2020 and so this rate was used in the December 2019 
deferred tax calculations. In the Budget of 11 March 2020, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that the planned rate reduction to 17% 
would no longer be taking effect. The changes announced during the Budget of 11 March 2020 were substantively enacted as at the 2020 
balance sheet date, therefore, all opening deferred taxation balances have been remeasured at 19%.

In December 2017, numerous changes to the tax laws were enacted in the US, including a decrease in the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. 
The deferred tax balance for US tax resident members of the Group at 31 December 2020 has been calculated based on the rate of 21% (2019: 21%).

(d) Deferred tax assets and liabilities

Deferred tax liabilities are attributable to the following temporary differences in respect of property, plant and equipment:

Deferred tax liabilities

2020

$’000 

(4)

2019

$’000 

(4)

The Group has unrecognised deferred tax assets of $27,289,000 (2019: $21,491,000) in respect of tax losses arising in the Group.

The Directors consider that there is not enough certainty over the availability of future taxable profits against which these losses may 
be offset and no asset has therefore been recognised.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

65

Financial statements 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Notes to the consolidated financial statements continued
For the year ended 31 December 2020

12. Loss per share

(a) Basic loss per share

The calculation of basic loss per share has been based on the following loss attributable to ordinary shareholders and weighted average 
number of ordinary shares outstanding:

Loss for the year attributable to ordinary shareholders

Weighted average number of ordinary shares

Issued ordinary shares at 1 January

Effect of shares issued in the year

Weighted average number of ordinary shares at 31 December

Basic loss per share

(b) Adjusted loss per share

2020

$’000 

 2019

$’000 

34,332

28,264

2020

2019

Number of

Number of

shares

’000

48,241

2,251

shares

’000

42,523

2,608

50,492

45,131

2020

$

0.68

2019

$

0.63

Adjusted loss per share is calculated based on the loss attributable to ordinary shareholders before net foreign exchange loss, acquisition-related 
items and the cost of equity-settled share-based payment, and the weighted average number of ordinary shares outstanding:

Loss for the year attributable to ordinary shareholders

Adjusted for:

Net foreign exchange loss

Equity-settled share-based payment

Adjusted loss for the year

Adjusted loss per share

(c) Diluted loss per share

2020

$’000 

 2019

$’000 

34,332

28,264

(1,809)

(5,403)

(2,047)

(8,707)

27,120

17,510

2020

$

0.54

2019

$

0.39

Due to the Group having losses in all years presented, the fully diluted loss per share for disclosure purposes, as shown in the consolidated 
statement of profit or loss and other comprehensive income, is the same as for the basic loss per share.

13. Share-based payment

See accounting policy in Note 28(g)(ii).

(a) Description of share-based payment arrangements

The Group operates share option plans for employees of the Group. Options in the plans are settled in equity in the Company and are 
normally subject to a vesting schedule but not conditional on any performance criteria being achieved.

66

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
13. Share-based payment continued

(a) Description of share-based payment arrangements continued

The terms and conditions of the share option grants between 14 September 2011 (the date WANdisco plc acquired WANdisco, Inc.) and 
31 December 2020 are as follows:

Year of grant

Range of exercise prices 

Vesting schedule

Prior to 2017

Prior to 2017

2017

2017

2018

2018

2019

2019

2020

2020

£0.10

£0.23–£4.55

£0.10

£3.90–£8.39

£0.10

£3.60–£8.34

£0.10

£5.10–£5.95

£0.10

£4.70–£5.10

3,4

1,2,4

4

3

3,4,7

3

4,7

3

4,5,8,9

3

2020

2019

Number 
outstanding

75,455 

1,285,276 

66,667 

1,161,733 

315,827 

71,915 

588,436 

66,110 

434,660 

205,605 

4,271,684

Weighted
average
remaining
contractual life 

4.7

3.7

6.7

6.5

7.7

7.7

8.3

8.4

9.7

9.7

6.5

Number 
outstanding 

77,455 

1,311,833 

220,001 

1,167,132 

1,359,410 

83,082 

730,744 

78,500 

—

—

5,028,157

Weighted
average
remaining
contractual life 

5.7

4.8

7.7

7.5

8.7

8.7

9.3

9.4

—

—

7.4

The following vesting schedule applies:

1.  25% of option vests on exercisable commencement date; 1/48 of granted option shares vest monthly thereafter.

2.  Option vests on third anniversary of the date of grant.

3.  Option vests 33% on first anniversary of vesting commencement date, with the balance vesting monthly thereafter until final vesting date.

4. 

 Option vests in three instalments: 1/3rd on first anniversary of vesting commencement date, 1/3rd on second anniversary and 1/3rd on 
third anniversary.

5.  Option vests 100% on first anniversary of vesting commencement date.

6.  Option vests in two instalments: 50% on the first anniversary of vesting commencement date and 50% on the second anniversary.

7.  Option vests in two instalments: 30% on the second anniversary of vesting commencement date and 70% on the third anniversary.

8.   Option vests 1/6th of the shares granted every six months.

9.   Option vests 1/6th after six months, 1/3rd after 18 and 30 months and 1/6th after 36 months.

(b) Measurement of fair values

The fair value of the employee share purchase plan has been measured using a Black-Scholes option pricing model.

The inputs used in the measurement of fair values at grant date of the equity-settled share-based payment plans granted during the year 
were as follows:

Weighted average share price

Exercise price

Dividend yield

Risk-free interest rate

Expected volatility

Expected life (years)

Weighted average fair value of options granted during the year

2020

2019

$7.05

$2.19

0%

0.07%

30%

$6.39

$0.78

0%

0.73%

30%

1–5 years

1–3 years

$4.85

$6.00

•  The dividend yield is based on the Company’s forecast dividend.

•  The risk-free interest rate is based on the treasury bond rates for the expected life of the option.

•  Expected volatility is based on the historical volatility of shares of listed companies with a similar profile to the Company.

•  Expected life in years is determined from the average expected period to exercise.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

67

Financial statements 
Notes to the consolidated financial statements continued
For the year ended 31 December 2020

13. Share-based payment continued

(c) Reconciliation of outstanding share options

The number and weighted average exercise prices of share options (including previous options in WANdisco, Inc.) under the share option 
plans were as follows:

Weighted
average
exercise
price
2020
$

Number of
options
2019

Weighted
average
exercise
price
2019
$

Number of
options
2020

5,028,157

2.57 4,662,070

(159,190)

(1,272,143)

674,860

1.21

0.22

2.19

(283,257)

(229,965)

879,309

4,271,684

3.47

5,028,157

2,784,861

4.72

2,983,106

2,784,861

4.72

2,983,106

2020

$

0.14

11.39

2020

Years

6.5

2.80

1.77

1.57

0.78

2.57

3.41

3.41

2019

$

0.13

10.65

2019

Years

7.4

2020

$’000 

 2019

$’000 

5,403

8,707

Outstanding at 1 January

Forfeited during the year

Exercised during the year

Granted during the year

Outstanding at 31 December 

Exercisable at 31 December 

Vested at the end of the year 

Exercise price in the range:

From

To

Weighted average contractual life remaining

(d) Expense recognised in profit or loss

Total equity-settled share-based payment charge

68

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
14. Property, plant and equipment

See accounting policy in Notes 28(l) and (q).

(a) Reconciliation of carrying amount

Cost

Balance at 1 January 2019

Impact of change in accounting policy – IFRS 16

Adjusted balance at 1 January 2019

Additions

Disposals

Effect of movements in exchange rates

Balance at 31 December 2019

Balance at 1 January 2020

Additions

Effect of movements in exchange rates

Balance at 31 December 2020

Accumulated depreciation

Balance at 1 January 2019

Depreciation 

Disposals

Effect of movements in exchange rates

Balance at 31 December 2019

Balance at 1 January 2020

Depreciation 

Effect of movements in exchange rates

Right of use

Leasehold

Fixtures and 

assets improvements

fittings

Computers

$’000

$’000

$’000

$’000

Total

$’000

—

1,865

1,865

1,301

—

3

3,169

3,169

14

50

3,233

—

(573)

—

(5)

206

—

206

417

—

2

625

625

8

17

650

(156)

(40)

—

(2)

327

—

327

17

—

5

349

349

6

6

1,714

—

1,714

407

(2)

20

2,247

1,865

4,112

2,142

(2)

30

2,139

6,282

2,139

6,282

293

27

321

100

361

2,459

6,703

(284)

(17)

—

(4)

(979)

(471)

2

(18)

(1,419)

(1,101)

2

(29)

(578)

(198)

(305)

(1,466)

(2,547)

(578)

(566)

(18)

(198)

(110)

(7)

(305)

(1,466)

(23)

(5)

(504)

(28)

(2,547)

(1,203)

(58)

Balance at 31 December 2020

(1,162)

(315)

(333)

(1,998)

(3,808)

Carrying amounts

At 31 December 2019

At 31 December 2020

(b) Right of use assets

Adjusted balance at 1 January 2019

Additions

Depreciation

Effect of movements in exchange rates

Balance at 1 January 2020

Additions

Depreciation 

Effect of movements in exchange rates

Balance at 31 December 2020

2,591

2,071

427

335

44

28

673

461

3,735

2,895

Property

Computers

$’000

$’000

1,846

1,300

(568)

(2)

2,576

13

(560)

32

2,061

19

1

(5)

—

15

1

(6)

—

10

Total

$’000

1,865

1,301

(573)

(2)

2,591

14

(566)

32

2,071

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

69

Financial statements 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Notes to the consolidated financial statements continued
For the year ended 31 December 2020

14. Property, plant and equipment continued

(b) Right of use assets continued

Property leases

The Group leases land and buildings for its office space. These leases run between three and ten years. Some leases include the option 
to renew the lease for an additional period of the same duration after the end of the contract term. Options to renew are only included 
in the term if it is reasonably certain that the option will be exercised.

Some leases provide for additional rent payments based on local price indices. 

Other leases

The Group leases computer equipment, with lease terms of three to five years. For the low-value items, the Group has elected not 
to recognise right of use assets and lease liabilities for these leases.

15. Intangible assets

See accounting policy in Notes 28(m) and (p).

(a) Reconciliation of carrying amount

Cost

Balance at 1 January 2019

Acquisitions – internally developed

Balance at 31 December 2019

Balance at 1 January 2020

Acquisitions – internally developed

Balance at 31 December 2020

Accumulated amortisation

Balance at 1 January 2019

Amortisation 

Balance at 31 December 2019

Balance at 1 January 2020

Amortisation 

Balance at 31 December 2020

Carrying amounts 

At 31 December 2019

At 31 December 2020

(b) Amortisation

Goodwill on

business  Development

Computer

combinations

$’000

costs

$’000

software

$’000

Total

$’000

3,154

48,229

1,689

—

5,062

—

53,072

5,062

3,154

53,291

1,689

58,134

3,154

—

53,291

5,220

1,689

—

58,134

5,220

3,154

58,511

1,689

63,354

(3,154)

(43,130)

(1,272)

(47,556)

—

(5,284)

(417)

(5,701)

(3,154)

(48,414)

(1,689)

(53,257)

(3,154)

(48,414)

(1,689)

(53,257)

—

(5,070)

—

(5,070)

(3,154)

(53,484)

(1,689)

(58,327)

—

—

4,877

5,027

—

—

4,877

5,027

The amortisation charge on intangible assets is included in operating expenses in the consolidated statement of profit or loss and other 
comprehensive income.

70

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
15. Intangible assets continued

(c) Impairment test

The carrying amount of the intangible assets is allocated across cash-generating units (“CGUs”). A CGU is defined as the smallest group 
of assets that generate cash inflows from continuing use that are largely independent of the cash inflows of other assets or groups thereof. 
The recoverable amount of the CGUs is determined using value in use (“VIU”) calculations. As at 31 December 2020 and 2019, the Group 
had one CGU, the DConE CGU, which represents the Group’s patented DConE replication technology, forming the basis for all products sold 
by the Group.

Goodwill on business combinations arose as part of the acquisitions of OhmData, Inc. in June 2014 and AltoStor, Inc. in November 2012. 
The intangibles arising as part of these acquisitions are allocated to the DConE CGU. The recoverable amount of the DConE CGU has been 
calculated on a VIU basis at both 31 December 2020 and 31 December 2019. These calculations use cash flow projections based on Board 
approved budget and financial forecasts, which anticipate growth in the Group’s installed base along with new customer growth, resulting 
in an average revenue growth of 71% over the five-year period with a 16% increase in cost base over the five-year period, and appropriate 
long-term growth rates. To prepare VIU calculations, the cash flow forecasts are discounted back to present value using a pre-tax discount 
rate of 10% (2019: 10%) and a terminal value growth rate of 2% (2019: 2%) from 2025. The Directors have reviewed the recoverable amount 
of the CGU and do not consider there to be any indication of impairment.

A sensitivity analysis was performed for the DConE CGU and management concluded that no reasonably possible change in any of the 
key assumptions would cause for the carrying value of the DConE CGU to exceed its recoverable amount.

(d) Development costs

Development costs are predominantly capitalised staff costs associated with new products and services. Development costs are allocated 
to the DConE CGU, the recoverable amount of which has been determined on a VIU basis as described above. 

16. Other non-current assets 

Due in more than a year

Other receivables

Accrued income

17. Trade and other receivables

See accounting policy in Note 28(n). 

Due within a year

Trade receivables 

Other receivables

Accrued income

Corporation tax

Prepayments

Total trade and other receivables

2020

$’000 

91

2,124

2019

$’000 

190

2,826

2,215

3,016

2020

$’000 

5,319

411

1,480

2,277

655

2019

$’000 

2,773

753

2,964

1,441

614

10,142

8,545

Information about the Group’s exposure to credit and market risks, and impairment losses for trade receivables is included in Note 23(a)(ii) 
and (iv).

18. Cash and cash equivalents

Bank balances

2020

$’000 

2019

$’000 

21,039

23,354

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

71

Financial statements 
 
 
 
 
Notes to the consolidated financial statements continued
For the year ended 31 December 2020

19. Equity

See accounting policy in Note 28(o).

(a) Share capital 

Share capital

Allotted and fully paid – par value 10 pence

Authorised – par value 10 pence

2020

Number

2020

$’000

2019

Number

2019

$’000

52,613,023

7,641

48,240,880

7,097

100,000,000

100,000,000

The ordinary share capital of WANdisco plc is designated in sterling.

(b) Ordinary shares

During the year, 1,272,143 ordinary shares were issued because of employees exercising share options.

On 12 June 2020 the Group announced the results of a placing (which was approved by General Meeting on 29 June 2020) for the 
subscription of 3,100,000 new ordinary shares of 10 pence each in the Company (comprising 2,362,515 placing shares and 737,485 direct 
subscription shares) at a price of 650 pence (a discount of 12.2% on the closing share price on 11 June 2020) raising gross proceeds of 
$24.9m. Transaction costs were $1.1m.

Following the year end on 9 March 2021 the Group announced a new subscription of shares to an existing shareholder for 4,864,480 new 
ordinary shares of 10 pence each in the Company at a price of 446 pence raising gross proceeds of $30.0m. 

In addition, on 10 March 2021 the Group announced the placing (which was approved by General Meeting on 29 March 2021) for 804,972 
new ordinary shares of 10 pence each in the Company together with the subscription of 1,216,120 new ordinary shares of 10 pence each 
at a price of 446 pence (a discount of 0.4% on the closing share price on 9 March 2021), raising gross proceeds of $12.5m.

(c) Nature and purpose of reserves

Translation reserve

The translation reserve comprises all foreign exchange differences arising from the translation of the financial statements of foreign operations.

Merger reserve

The acquisition by WANdisco plc of the entire share capital of WANdisco, Inc. in 2012 was accounted for as a reverse acquisition. 
Consequently, the previously recognised book values and assets and liabilities were retained and the consolidated financial information 
for the period to 16 May 2012 has been presented as a continuation of the WANdisco business, which was previously wholly owned 
by the WANdisco, Inc. Group. 

The share capital for the period covered by these consolidated financial statements and the comparative periods is stated at the nominal 
value of the shares issued pursuant to the above share arrangement. The difference between the nominal value of these shares and the 
nominal value of WANdisco, Inc. shares at the time of the acquisition has been transferred to the merger reserve.

20. Loans and borrowings

See accounting policy in Notes 28(n) and (q).

Non-current liabilities

Secured bank loan

Lease liabilities

Current liabilities

Current portion of secured bank loan

Current portion of lease liabilities

Total loans and borrowings

Information about the Group’s exposure to interest rate, foreign currency and liquidity risks is included in Note 23.

72

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

2020

$’000 

2019

$’000 

—

1,778

555

2,334

1,778

2,889

556

559

1,667

545

1,115

2,212

2,893

5,101

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
20. Loans and borrowings continued

(a) Terms and repayment schedule

The terms and conditions of outstanding loans are as follows:

Borrowing

Currency

Nominal interest rate

31 December 2020

31 December 2019

Year of
maturity

Face value
$’000

Carrying
amount
$’000

Face value
$’000

Carrying
amount
$’000

Secured bank loan

US dollars US prime rate + 1.5%

2021

556

556

2,318

2,222

Lease liabilities

Total interest bearing

US dollars
and sterling

8% 3–10 years

2,843

2,337

3,590

2,879

3,399

2,893

5,908

5,101

At 31 December 2020, the $0.6m of bank loan (2019: $2.2m) represents term debt drawn down with Silicon Valley Bank. The facility 
comprises $0.6m (2019: $2.2m) term debt, with an interest-only period to 31 May 2018, followed by a three-year maturity at a floating 
interest rate charged at 1.5% above the US prime rate. The bank loan is secured over the assets of WANdisco, Inc.

(b) Lease liabilities

Maturity analysis – contractual undiscounted cash flows

Less than one year

Between one and five years

More than five years

Expenses relating to short-term leases recognised in profit or loss were $7,000 (2019: $8,300).

(c) Reconciliation of movements in liabilities to cash flows arising from financing activities

Balance at 1 January 2020

Non-cash movements

New lease liability

Effect of movements in exchange rates

Cash movements

Repayment of borrowings

Payment of lease liabilities

Total changes from financing cash flows

Balance at 31 December 2020

21. Deferred income

See accounting policy in Note 28(d).

Deferred income which falls due:

Within a year

In more than a year

Total deferred income

2020
$’000

718

1,482

643

2019
$’000

758

1,989

843

2,843

3,590

Lease
liabilities

$’000 

Bank
loan

$’000 

2,879

2,222

14

39

—

—

—

(1,666)

(595)

—

(595)

(1,666)

2,337

556

2020

$’000

3,094

659

2019

$’000

2,622

1,188

3,753

3,810

Deferred income represents contracted sales for which services to customers will be provided in future years.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

73

Financial statements 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Notes to the consolidated financial statements continued
For the year ended 31 December 2020

22. Trade and other payables

Trade payables

Accrued expenses

23. Financial instruments – fair values and risk management

See accounting policy in Notes 28(n) and (s).

(a) Financial risk management

The Group has exposure to the following risks arising from financial instruments:

•  credit risk (see (a)(ii));

•  liquidity risk (see (a)(iii));

•  market risk (see (a)(iv));

•  currency risk (see (a)(v)); and

•  interest rate risk (see (a)(vi)).

(i) Risk management framework

2020

$’000 

786

4,676

2019

$’000 

864

3,507

5,462

4,371

The Group’s risk management policies are established to identify and analyse risks faced by the Group, to set appropriate risk limits and 
controls and to monitor risks and adherence to limits. Risk management policies and systems are reviewed regularly to reflect changes in 
market conditions and the Group’s activities.

The Group Audit Committee oversees how management monitors compliance with the Group’s risk management policies and procedures 
and reviews the adequacy of the risk management framework in relation to the risks faced by the Group.

(ii) Credit risk

Credit risk is the risk of financial loss to the Group if a customer fails to meet its contractual obligations and arises principally from the 
Group’s receivables from customers.

Trade receivables

The carrying amounts of financial assets represent the maximum credit exposure and approximate to their fair value.

Ageing of trade receivables

Neither past due nor impaired

Past due but not impaired

Past due 1–30 days

Past due 31–90 days

Total not impaired trade receivables

2020

$’000 

2019

$’000 

4,650

2,547

663

6

226

—

5,319

2,773

Credit losses of $100,000 were applied to trade receivables in the year ended 31 December 2020 (2019: $nil) . Other than this, there were no 
other credit losses applied in 2020 or 2019 as they were assessed as low risk. The Group assesses expected credit loss for each individual 
customer considering their financial position, experience and other factors.

All trade receivables are denominated in US dollars.

Contract assets

Credit losses of $367,500 were applied to contract assets in the year ended 31 December 2020 (2019: $nil). Other than this, there were no 
other credit losses applied to contract assets in 2020 or 2019 as they were assessed as low risk. This assessment is made for each individual 
customer considering their financial position, experience and other factors.

Cash and cash equivalents

The Group held cash and cash equivalents of $21.0m at 31 December 2020 (2019: $23.4m). The cash and cash equivalents are held 
with banks which are rated P-1 for short-term obligations, based on Moody’s ratings.

74

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

 
 
 
 
 
 
23. Financial instruments – fair values and risk management continued

(a) Financial risk management continued

(iii) Liquidity risk

Liquidity risk is the risk that the Group will encounter difficulty in meeting the obligations associated with its financial liabilities that are 
settled by delivering cash or another financial asset. The Group’s approach to managing liquidity is to ensure, as far as possible, that it will 
have enough liquidity to meet its liabilities when they are due, under both normal and stressed conditions, without incurring unacceptable 
losses or risking damage to the Group’s reputation.

The Board monitors rolling cash flow projections on a monthly basis as well as information regarding cash balances. At the end of the 
financial year, these projections, which included the equity raise post year end for gross proceeds of $42.5m, indicated that the Group 
expected to have sufficient liquid resources to meet its obligations under all reasonably expected circumstances for at least 12 months from 
the date of signing these financial statements.

Exposure to liquidity risk

The following are the remaining contractual maturities of financial liabilities at the reporting date. The amounts are gross and undiscounted 
and include contractual interest payments. 

At 31 December 2020

Non-derivative financial liabilities

Secured bank loan

Lease liabilities

Trade payables

 Carrying
amount
$’000

Total
$’000

Less than
12 months
$’000

1–2 years
$’000

2–5 years
$’000

>5 years
$’000

Contractual cash flows

556

2,337

5,462

556

2,843

5,462

556

718

5,462

8,355

8,861

6,736

—

655

—

655

—

827

—

827

—

643

—

643

The interest payments on variable interest rate loans in the table above reflect market forward interest rates at the reporting date and these 
amounts may change as market interest rates change.

(iv) Market risk

Market risk is the risk that changes in market prices – e.g. foreign exchange rates and interest rates – will affect the Group’s income or the 
value of its holdings of financial instruments. The objective of market risk management is to manage and control market risk exposures 
within acceptable parameters, whilst optimising the return.

The Group may be affected by general market trends, which are unrelated to the performance of the Group itself. The Group’s success 
will depend on market acceptance of the Group’s products and there can be no guarantee that this acceptance will be forthcoming. 
Market opportunities targeted by the Group may change and this could lead to an adverse effect upon its revenue and earnings.

(v) Currency risk

The Group is exposed to transactional foreign currency risk to the extent that there is a mismatch between the currencies in which sales, 
purchases, receivables and borrowings are denominated and the respective functional currencies of Group companies. The functional 
currencies of Group companies are primarily US dollars, sterling and Australian dollars.

The following table shows the denomination of the year-end cash and cash equivalents balance:

2020 cash and cash equivalents

2019 cash and cash equivalents

Sterling

$’000

14,703

1,177

Australian

dollar

$’000

165

47

Euro

$’000

220

US dollar

$’000

Total

$’000

5,951

21,039

935

21,195

23,354

Had the foreign exchange rate between the US dollar and sterling changed by 5%, this would have affected the loss for the year and the net 
assets of the Group by $796,000 (2019: $648,000). 

(vi) Interest rate risk

The Group is exposed to interest rate risk on its $0.6m debt drawing (2019: $2.2m), on which interest is charged at 1.5% above the US prime rate. 
The interest is sensitive to movements in the US prime rate. The debt is repaid in monthly instalments and will be fully repaid by May 2021.

(vii) Capital management 

The Group defines the capital that it manages as its total equity. The Group’s objectives when managing capital are to safeguard the Group’s 
ability to continue as a going concern and support the growth of the business. During the year, the Group raised $24.9m gross proceeds from 
an equity raise and $42.5m following the end of the year.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

75

Financial statements 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Notes to the consolidated financial statements continued
For the year ended 31 December 2020

24. List of subsidiaries

See accounting policy in Note 28(a).

Set out below is a list of the subsidiaries of the Group:

Company name

Country of
incorporation

Proportion
of shares

Holding

held Nature of business

WANdisco International Limited

UK Ordinary shares

100% Development and provision of global collaboration software

WANdisco, Inc.

OhmData, Inc.

AltoStor, Inc.

US Ordinary shares

100% Development and provision of global collaboration software

US Ordinary shares

100% Dormant

US Ordinary shares

100% Dormant

WANdisco, Pty Ltd

Australia Ordinary shares 

100% Development and provision of global collaboration software

WANdisco Software (Chengdu) Ltd

China Ordinary shares

100% Development and provision of global collaboration software

All of the above entities are included in the consolidated financial statements.

25. Commitments and contingencies

At 31 December 2020 the Group had no capital commitments (31 December 2019: $nil). The Group had no contingent liabilities at 
31 December 2020 (31 December 2019: none).

26. Related parties

(a) Transactions with key management personnel

Key management personnel compensation comprised the following:

Short-term employee benefits

Equity-settled share-based payment

2020

$’000

4,801

2,825

2019

$’000

4,842

6,144

7,626

10,986

Further details on the remuneration, share options and pension entitlements of the Directors are included in the Directors’ share options 
and the Directors’ remuneration tables included in the Remuneration Committee report on pages 44 to 46, which form part of these audited 
financial statements.

27. Subsequent events

On 9 March 2021 the Group announced a new subscription of shares to an existing shareholder for 4,864,480 new ordinary shares 
of 10 pence each in the Company at a price of 446 pence raising gross proceeds of $30.0m. 

In addition, on 10 March 2021 the Group announced the placing (which was approved by General Meeting on 29 March 2021) for 804,972 
new ordinary shares of 10 pence each in the Company together with the subscription of 1,216,120 new ordinary shares of 10 pence each 
at a price of 446 pence (a discount of 0.4% on the closing share price on 9 March 2021), raising gross proceeds of $12.5m.

28. Significant accounting policies

The Group has consistently applied the following accounting policies to all periods presented in these consolidated financial statements, 
except if mentioned otherwise.

(a) Basis of consolidation

(i) Business combinations

The Group accounts for business combinations using the acquisition method when control is transferred to the Group. The consideration 
transferred in the acquisition is generally measured at fair value, as are the identifiable net assets acquired. Any goodwill that arises is tested 
annually for impairment. Any gain on a bargain purchase is recognised in profit or loss immediately. Transaction costs are expensed as incurred, 
except if related to the issue of debt or equity securities. Any contingent consideration is measured at fair value at the date of acquisition. 

(ii) Subsidiaries

Subsidiaries are entities controlled by the Group. The Group “controls” an entity when it is exposed to, or has rights to, variable returns from its 
involvement with the entity and has the ability to affect those returns through its power over the entity. The financial statements of subsidiaries 
are included in the consolidated financial statements from the date on which control commences until the date on which control ceases.

76

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

 
 
 
28. Significant accounting policies continued 

(a) Basis of consolidation continued

(iii) Transactions eliminated on consolidation

Intra-group balances and transactions, and any unrealised income and expenses arising from intra-group transactions, are eliminated. 

(b) Foreign currency

(i) Foreign currency transactions

Transactions in foreign currencies are translated into the respective functional currencies of Group companies at the exchange rates 
at the dates of the transactions.

Monetary assets and liabilities denominated in foreign currencies are translated into the functional currency at the exchange rate at the 
reporting date. Non-monetary assets and liabilities that are measured at fair value in foreign currency are translated into the functional 
currency at the exchange rate when the fair value was determined. Non-monetary items that are measured based on historical cost in a 
foreign currency are translated at the exchange rate at the date of the transaction. Foreign currency differences are generally recognised 
in profit or loss and presented within finance costs.

(ii) Foreign operations

The assets and liabilities of foreign operations, including goodwill and fair value adjustments arising on acquisition, are translated into 
US dollars at the exchange rates at the reporting date. The income and expenses of foreign operations are translated into US dollars 
at an average rate for the year, where this approximates to the foreign exchange rates ruling at the dates the fair value was determined.

Foreign currency differences are recognised in other comprehensive income (“OCI”) and accumulated in the translation reserve.

(c) Use of estimates and judgements

The preparation of financial information in conformity with adopted IFRS requires management to make judgements, estimates and 
assumptions that affect the application of accounting policies and the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, income and expenses. 
Actual results may differ from these estimates.

Estimates and underlying assumptions are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Revisions to accounting estimates are recognised in the period 
in which the estimates are revised and in any future periods affected.

(i) Accounting estimates 

The preparation of financial statements in conformity with adopted IFRSs requires the use of estimates and assumptions that affect the 
reported amounts of assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during 
the reporting year. Although these estimates are based on management’s best knowledge of the amount, events or actions, actual results 
ultimately may differ from those estimates.

The estimates and underlying assumptions are reviewed on an ongoing basis. The estimates and associated assumptions are based 
on historical experience and various other factors that are believed to be reasonable under the circumstances.

Revisions to accounting estimates are recognised in the period in which the estimate is revised if the revision affects only that period, or 
in the period of the revision and future periods if the revision affects both current and future periods. The Directors consider the following 
to be the estimates applicable to the financial statements, which have a significant risk of resulting in a material adjustment to the carrying 
amounts of assets and liabilities within the next financial year or in the long term:

Revenue

Key assumption: When allocating revenue between different performance obligations, the fair value of the various components is required, 
which involves the use of estimates to establish the relative fair values. See Note 7.

(ii) Judgements

The Group applies judgement in how it applies its accounting policies, which do not involve estimation, but could materially affect the 
numbers disclosed in these financial statements. The key accounting judgements, without estimation, that have been applied in these 
financial statements are as follows:

Development costs

Capitalisation of development expenditure is completed only if development costs meet certain criteria. Full detail of the criteria 
is in Note 28(m)(i).

•  Alternative accounting judgement that could have been applied – not capitalising development costs.

•  Effect of that alternative accounting judgement – reduction of $5,027,000 of assets’ carrying value.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

77

Financial statementsNotes to the consolidated financial statements continued
For the year ended 31 December 2020

28. Significant accounting policies continued

(c) Use of estimates and judgements continued

(ii) Judgements continued

Revenue

An additional area of judgement is the recognition and deferral of revenue in the situation when different performance obligations are bundled. 
For example, the carve-out of the term licence in a subscription arrangement from the maintenance and support element. When products are 
bundled together for the purpose of sale, the associated revenue, net of all applicable discounts, is allocated between the constituent parts 
of the bundle on a relative fair value basis. The Group has a systematic basis for allocating relative fair values in these situations.

•  Alternative accounting judgement that could have been applied – alternative methodology to allocate the fair values.

•  Effect of that alternative accounting judgement – change in revenue figure and deferred income by the same amount.

(d) Revenue from contracts with customers

The following table provides information about the nature and timing of the satisfaction of performance obligations in contracts 
with customers, including significant payment terms and the related revenue recognition policies.

The details of the accounting policies in relation to the Group’s various products and services are set out below:

Type of product/service

IFRS 15 treatment

Software licences – 
perpetual licences

Under IFRS 15, revenue on perpetual licences is recognised in full once the licence has been granted 
and the customer has been provided with access to the software as it is considered that control has 
been passed at that point in time.

Software subscriptions 
(which include both a term 
software licence and a 
maintenance and 
support contract)

Under IFRS 15 subscription arrangements have been split into two performance obligations which are 
both considered as distinct:

•  term software licence; and

•  maintenance and support.

The allocation of transaction price between the two performance obligations is based on an adjusted 
market assessment approach.

Term software licences are treated like perpetual licences with revenue being recognised in full once 
the licence has been granted and the customer has been provided with access to the software as 
it is considered that control has been passed at that point in time.

The maintenance and support component is spread over the life of the contract as the performance 
obligation is satisfied over time matching the period of the contract.

Maintenance and 
support contracts

Maintenance and support revenue is spread over time as the performance obligation is satisfied over 
the period of the contract.

Training, implementation 
and professional services

Sales of training, implementation and professional services are recognised on delivery of the services 
at a point in time.

Royalties

Royalties are accounted for on an accruals basis. Under IFRS 15 the recognition of royalties is prohibited 
until the sale or usage occurs, even if the sale or usage is probable.

Sales commissions

Under IFRS 15, the costs of obtaining a contract should be recognised as an asset and subsequently 
amortised if they are incremental and are expected to be recovered.

Amortisation is charged on a basis consistent with the transfer to the customer of the licence or services 
to which the capitalised costs relate.

The Group recognises revenue on a gross basis (as the principal), in with IFRS 15 requirements, when selling through online marketplaces 
as has the primary responsibility for fulfilling the promise to provide the specified goods or service and has the discretion to establish prices.

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WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

28. Significant accounting policies continued

(d) Revenue from contracts with customers continued

The Group determines the transaction price it is entitled to in return for providing the promised obligations to the customer based on the 
committed contractual amounts. Customers either pay up-front or in payment instalments over the term of the related service agreement.

Contract assets relate to: 

•  accrued income – licence revenue which has been recognised but has not yet been billed to the customer (as is being billed in instalments 

over the term of the related service agreement) at the reporting date. The contract asset is transferred to receivables when the Group 
issues an invoice to the customer.

Contract liabilities relate to deferred income which is recognised as revenue when the performance obligations are satisfied.

(e) Segmental reporting

The Directors consider there to be one operating segment, being that of development and sale of licences for software and related 
maintenance and support.

The Group has adopted IFRS 8 “Operating Segments” from the date of transition to IFRS. IFRS 8 requires the Group to determine and 
present its operating segments based on information which is provided internally to the Chief Operating Decision Maker (“CODM”). 
The CODM, who is responsible for allocating resources and assessing the performance of the operating segment, has been identified 
as the Chief Executive Officer.

(f) Cost of sales

Cost of sales includes commissions earned by our salesforce on sales and direct costs relating to software supply.

(g) Employee benefits

(i) Short-term employee benefits

Short-term employee benefits are expensed as the related service is provided. A liability is recognised for the amount expected to be paid 
if the Group has a present legal or constructive obligation to pay this amount because of past services provided by the employee and the 
obligation can be estimated reliably.

(ii) Share-based payment arrangements

The grant date fair value of equity-settled share-based payment arrangements granted to employees is recognised as an expense, with 
a corresponding increase in equity, over the vesting period of the awards. The amount recognised as an expense is adjusted to reflect the 
number of awards for which the related service and non-market performance conditions are expected to be met, such that the amount 
ultimately recognised is based on the number of awards that meet the related service and non-market-based performance conditions 
at the vesting date. For share-based payment awards with non-vesting conditions, the grant date fair value of the share-based payment 
is measured to reflect such conditions and there is no true-up for differences between expected and actual outcomes.

(iii) Defined contribution plans

Obligations for contributions to defined contribution plans are expensed as the related service is provided. Prepaid contributions are 
recognised as an asset to the extent that a cash refund or a reduction in future payments is available.

(iv) Termination benefits

Termination benefits are expensed at the earlier of when the Group can no longer withdraw the offer of those benefits and when the Group 
recognises costs for a restructuring. If benefits are not expected to be settled wholly within twelve months of the reporting date, then they 
are discounted.

(h) Government grants

The Group recognises an unconditional government grant related to development costs as deferred income at fair value if there is reasonable 
assurance that they will be received, and the Group will comply with the conditions associated with the grant; they are then recognised in 
profit or loss as other income on a systematic basis over the useful life of the asset.

Grants that compensate the Group for expenses incurred are recognised in profit or loss on a systematic basis in the periods in which the 
expenses are recognised. 

(i) Exceptional items

Exceptional items comprise items of income and expense that are material in amount and that merit separate disclosure in order to provide 
an understanding of the Group’s underlying financial performance.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

79

Financial statementsNotes to the consolidated financial statements continued
For the year ended 31 December 2020

28. Significant accounting policies continued

(j) Finance income and finance costs

The Group’s finance income and finance costs include:

•  interest income;

•  interest expense; and

•  the foreign currency gain or loss on financial assets and financial liabilities.

Interest income or expense is recognised using the effective interest method. The effective interest rate is the rate that exactly discounts 
estimated future cash payments or receipts through the expected life of the financial instrument to: 

•  the gross carrying amount of the financial asset; or

•  the amortised cost of the financial liability.

In calculating interest income and expense, the effective interest rate is applied to the gross carrying amount of the asset (when the asset 
is not credit-impaired) or to the amortised cost of the liability. However, for financial assets that have become credit-impaired subsequent to 
initial recognition, interest income is calculated by applying the effective interest rate to the amortised cost of the financial asset. If the asset 
is no longer credit-impaired, then the calculation of interest income reverts to the gross basis.

(k) Income tax

Income tax comprises current and deferred tax. It is recognised in profit or loss except to the extent that it relates to a business combination, 
or items recognised directly in equity or in OCI.

(i) Current tax

Current tax comprises the expected tax payable or receivable on the taxable income or loss for the year (including R&D tax credits) and 
any adjustments to the tax payable or receivable in respect of previous years. The amount of current tax payable or receivable is the best 
estimate of the tax amount expected to be paid or received that reflects uncertainty related to income taxes, if any. It is measured using 
tax rates enacted or substantively enacted at the reporting date. 

Current tax assets and liabilities are offset only if certain criteria are met.

(ii) Deferred tax

Deferred tax is recognised in respect of temporary differences between the carrying amounts of assets and liabilities for financial reporting 
purposes and the amounts used for taxation purposes.

Deferred tax is not recognised for:

•  temporary differences on the initial recognition of assets or liabilities in a transaction that is not a business combination and that affects 

neither accounting nor taxable profit or loss;

•  temporary differences related to investments in subsidiaries, associates and joint arrangements to the extent that the Group is able to 
control the timing of the reversal of the temporary differences and it is probable that they will not reverse in the foreseeable future; and

•  taxable temporary differences arising on the initial recognition of goodwill.

Deferred tax assets are recognised for unused tax losses, unused tax credits and deductible temporary differences to the extent that 
it is probable that future taxable profits will be available against which they can be used. Future taxable profits are determined based on the 
reversal of relevant taxable temporary differences. If the amount of taxable temporary differences is insufficient to recognise a deferred tax 
asset in full, then future taxable profits, adjusted for reversals of existing temporary differences, are considered, based on business plans for 
individual subsidiaries in the Group. Deferred tax assets are reviewed at each reporting date and are reduced to the extent that it is no longer 
probable that the related tax benefit will be realised; such reductions are reversed when the probability of future taxable profits improves.

Unrecognised deferred tax assets are reassessed at each reporting date and recognised to the extent that it has become probable that future 
taxable profits will be available against which they can be used.

Deferred tax is measured at the tax rates that are expected to be applied to temporary differences when they reverse, using tax rates enacted 
or substantively enacted at the reporting date.

The measurement of deferred tax reflects the tax consequences that would follow from the manner in which the Group expects, at the 
reporting date, to recover or settle the carrying amount of its assets and liabilities. 

Deferred tax assets and liabilities are offset only if certain criteria are met.

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WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

28. Significant accounting policies continued

(l) Property, plant and equipment

(i) Recognition and measurement

Items of property, plant and equipment are measured at cost, which includes capitalised borrowing costs, less accumulated depreciation 
and any accumulated impairment losses. 

If significant parts of an item of property, plant and equipment have different useful lives, then they are accounted for as separate items 
(major components) of property, plant and equipment.

Any gain or loss on disposal of an item of property, plant and equipment is recognised in profit or loss.

(ii) Depreciation

Depreciation is calculated to write off the cost of items of property, plant and equipment less their estimated residual values using the 
straight-line method over their estimated useful lives and is generally recognised in profit or loss. Leased assets are depreciated over the 
shorter of the lease term and their useful lives unless it is reasonably certain that the Group will obtain ownership by the end of the lease term. 

The estimated useful lives of property, plant and equipment for current and comparative periods are as follows:

•  Computer equipment 

•  Fixtures and fittings 

Three years

Three years

•  Leasehold improvements 

Three to five years

•  Right of use assets 

Life of lease

Depreciation methods, useful lives and residual values are reviewed at each reporting date and adjusted if appropriate.

(m) Intangible assets and goodwill

(i) Recognition and measurement

Goodwill

Goodwill arising on the acquisition of subsidiaries is measured at cost less accumulated impairment losses.

Other intangible assets 
(including computer software)

Other intangible assets, including those acquired on acquisition of subsidiaries, have finite useful lives and 
are measured at cost less accumulated amortisation and any accumulated impairment losses.

Development costs

Expenditure on research activities is recognised in profit or loss as incurred.

Development activities relate to software development and involve a plan or design for the production 
of new or substantially improved products and processes. Development expenditure is capitalised only if:

•  development costs can be measured reliably;

•  the product or process is technically and commercially feasible;

•  future economic benefits are probable; and

•  the Group intends to, and has sufficient resources to, complete development and to use or sell the asset.

The expenditure capitalised includes direct labour and overhead costs that are directly attributable to 
preparing the asset for its intended use.

Otherwise, development costs are recognised in profit or loss as incurred.

Subsequent to initial recognition, development expenditure is measured at cost less accumulated 
amortisation and any accumulated impairment losses.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

81

Financial statements 
 
 
 
Notes to the consolidated financial statements continued
For the year ended 31 December 2020

28. Significant accounting policies continued

(m) Intangible assets and goodwill continued

(ii) Amortisation

Amortisation is calculated to write off the cost of intangible assets less their estimated residual values using the straight-line method over 
their estimated useful lives and is generally recognised in profit or loss. Goodwill is not amortised.

The estimated useful lives for current and comparative periods are as follows:

•  Other intangible assets  

•  Development costs  

•  Computer software 

Two years

Two years

Over the life of the software licence

Amortisation methods, useful lives and residual values are reviewed at each reporting date and adjusted if appropriate.

(n) Financial instruments

(i) Recognition and initial measurement

Trade receivables are initially recognised when they are originated. All other financial assets and liabilities are initially recognised when the 
Group becomes a party to the contractual provisions of the instrument.

A financial asset (unless it is a trade receivable without a significant financing component) or financial liability is initially measured at fair 
value plus, for an item not at fair value through profit or loss (“FVTPL”), transaction costs that are directly attributable to its acquisition 
or issue. A trade receivable without a significant financing component is initially measured at the transaction price.

(ii) Classification and subsequent measurement

Financial assets 

On initial recognition, a financial asset is classified as measured at amortised cost.

Financial assets are not reclassified after their initial recognition unless the Group changes its business model for managing financial assets, 
in which case all affected financial assets are reclassified on the first day of the first reporting period following the change in the business model.

A financial asset is measured at amortised cost if it meets both of the following conditions and is not designated as at FVTPL:

•  it is held within a business model whose objective is to hold assets to collect contractual cash flows; and

•  its contractual terms give rise on specified dates to cash flows that are solely payments of principal and interest on the principal 

amount outstanding.

Financial assets – business model assessment

The Group assesses the objective of the business model in which a financial asset is held at a portfolio level because this best reflects the 
way the business is managed, and information is provided to management. 

Financial assets – assessment whether contractual cash flows are solely payments of principal and interest

For the purpose of this assessment, “principal” is defined as the fair value of the financial asset on initial recognition. “Interest” is defined as 
consideration for the time value of money and for the credit risk associated with the principal amount outstanding during a particular period 
of time and for other basic lending risks and costs (e.g. liquidity risk and administrative costs), as well as a profit margin.

In assessing whether the contractual cash flows are solely payments of principal and interest, the Group considers the contractual terms 
of the instrument. This includes assessing whether the financial asset contains a contractual term that could change the timing or amount 
of contractual cash flows such that it would not meet this condition. In making this assessment, the Group considers:

•  contingent events that would change the amount or timing of cash flows;

•  terms that may adjust the contractual coupon rate, including variable rate features;

•  prepayment and extension features; and

•  terms that limit the Group’s claim to cash flows from specified assets (e.g. non-recourse features).

A prepayment feature is consistent with the sole payments of principal and interest criterion if the prepayment amount substantially 
represents unpaid amounts of principal and interest on the principal amount outstanding, which may include reasonable additional 
compensation for early termination of the contract. Additionally, for a financial asset acquired at a discount or premium to its contractual par 
amount, a feature that permits or requires prepayment at an amount that substantially represents the contractual par amount plus accrued 
(but unpaid) contractual interest (which may also include reasonable additional compensation for early termination) is treated as consistent 
with this criterion if the fair value of the prepayment feature is insignificant at initial recognition.

82

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

 
 
 
28. Significant accounting policies continued

(n) Financial instruments continued

(ii) Classification and subsequent measurement continued

Financial assets – subsequent measurement and gains and losses

Financial assets at FVTPL

These assets are subsequently measured at fair value. Net gains and losses, including any 
interest, are recognised in profit or loss. 

Financial assets at amortised cost

These assets are subsequently measured at amortised cost using the effective interest method. 
The amortised cost is reduced by impairment losses. Interest income, foreign exchange gains 
and losses and impairment are recognised in profit or loss.

Financial liabilities – classification, subsequent measurement and gains and losses

Financial liabilities are classified as measured at amortised cost or FVTPL. A financial liability is classified as at FVTPL if it is classified as 
held for trading, is a derivative or is designated as such on initial recognition. Financial liabilities at FVTPL are measured at fair value and 
net gains and losses, including any interest expense, are recorded in profit or loss. Other financial liabilities are subsequently measured at 
amortised cost using the effective interest method. Interest expense and foreign exchange gains and losses are measured in profit or loss. 
Any gain or loss on derecognition is also recognised in profit or loss.

(iii) Derecognition

Financial assets

The Group derecognises a financial asset when the contractual rights to the cash flows from the financial asset expire, or it transfers the 
rights to receive the contractual cash flows in a transaction in which substantially all of the risk and rewards of ownership of the financial 
asset are transferred or in which the Group neither transfers nor retains substantially all of the risks and rewards of ownership and it does 
not retain control of the financial asset.

Financial liabilities

The Group derecognises a financial liability when its contractual obligations are discharged or cancelled or expire. The Group also 
derecognises a financial liability when its terms are modified, and the cash flows of the modified liability are substantially different, 
in which case a new financial liability based on the modified terms is recognised at fair value.

On derecognition of a financial liability, the difference between the carrying amount extinguished and the consideration paid (including any 
non-cash assets transferred or liabilities assumed) is recognised in profit or loss.

(iv) Offsetting

Financial assets and financial liabilities are offset and the net amount presented in the statement of financial position when, and only when, 
the Group has a legally enforceable right to set off the amounts and it intends either to settle them on a net basis to realise the asset and 
settle the liability simultaneously.

(o) Share capital

Share capital is denominated in sterling and is translated into US dollars on issue with no subsequent retranslation. Incremental costs directly 
attributable to the issue of ordinary shares are recognised as a deduction from equity. Income tax relating to transaction costs of an equity 
transaction is accounted for in accordance with IAS 12.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

83

Financial statementsNotes to the consolidated financial statements continued
For the year ended 31 December 2020

28. Significant accounting policies continued

(p) Impairment

(i) Non-derivative financial assets

Financial instruments and contract assets

The Group recognises loss allowances for estimate credit losses (“ECL”) on:

•  financial assets measured at amortised cost; and

•  contract assets.

Loss allowances for trade receivables and contract assets are always measured at an amount equal to lifetime ECLs.

For other financial assets, when determining whether the credit risk of a financial asset has increased significantly since initial recognition 
and when estimating ECLs, the Group considers reasonable and supportable information that is relevant and available without undue cost 
or effort. This includes both quantitative and qualitative information and analysis, based on the Group’s historical experience and informed 
credit assessment and including forward-looking information.

Measurement of ECLs

ECLs are a probability-weighted estimate of credit losses. Credit losses are measured as the present value of all cash shortfalls (i.e. the 
difference between cash flows due to the entity in accordance with the contract and the cash flows that the Group expects to receive).

ECLs are discounted at the effective interest rate of the financial asset.

Credit-impaired financial assets

At each reporting date, the Group assesses whether financial assets carried at amortised cost are credit-impaired. A financial asset 
is “credit-impaired” when one or more events that have a detrimental impact on the estimated future cash flows of the financial asset 
have occurred.

Evidence that a financial asset is credit-impaired includes the following observable data:

•  significant financial difficulty of the customer;

•  a breach of contract, such as a default; or

•  it is probable that the customer will enter bankruptcy or other financial reorganisation.

Presentation of allowance for ECL in the statement of financial position

Loss allowances for financial assets measured at amortised cost are deducted from the gross carrying amount of the assets.

The gross carrying amount of a financial asset is written off when the Group has no reasonable expectations of recovering a financial asset 
in its entirety or a portion thereof. The Group individually makes an assessment with respect to the timing and amount of write-off based 
on whether there is a reasonable expectation of recovery. The Group expects no significant recovery from the amount written off. 

(ii) Non-financial assets

At each reporting date, the Group reviews the carrying amounts of its non-financial assets (other than deferred tax assets) to determine 
whether there is any indication of impairment. If any such indication exists, then the asset’s recoverable amount is estimated. Goodwill 
is tested annually for impairment.

For impairment testing, assets are grouped together into the smallest group of assets that generates cash inflows from continuing use that 
is largely independent of the cash inflows of other assets or CGUs. Goodwill arising from a business combination is allocated to CGUs or 
groups of CGUs that are expected to benefit from the synergies of the combination.

The recoverable amount of an asset or CGU is the greater of its value in use and its fair value less costs to sell. Value in use is based on the 
estimated future cash flows, discounted to their present value using a pre-tax discount rate that reflects current market assessments of the 
time value of money and the risks specific to the asset or CGU.

An impairment loss is recognised if the carrying amount of an asset or CGU exceeds its recoverable amount.

Impairment losses are recognised in profit or loss. They are allocated first to reduce the carrying amount of any goodwill allocated to the 
CGU, and then to reduce the carrying amount of the other assets in the CGU on a pro rata basis.

An impairment loss in respect of goodwill is not reversed. For other assets, an impairment loss is reversed only to the extent that the asset’s 
carrying amount does not exceed the carrying amount that would have been determined, net of depreciation or amortisation, if no 
impairment had been recognised.

84

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

28. Significant accounting policies continued

(q) Leases

(i) Policy

The Group applied IFRS 16 with a date of initial application of 1 January 2019. The Group applied IFRS 16 using the modified retrospective 
approach, under which the cumulative effect of initial application is recognised in retained earnings at 1 January 2019.

At inception of a contract, the Group assesses whether a contract is, or contains, a lease. A contract is, or contains, a lease if the contract 
conveys the right to control the use of an identified asset for a period of time in exchange for consideration. To assess whether a contract 
conveys the right to control the use of an identified asset, the Group assesses whether:

•  the contract involves the use of an identified asset – this may be specified explicitly or implicitly and should be physically distinct or 

represent substantially all of the capacity of a physically distinct asset. If the supplier has a substantive substitution right, then the asset 
is not identified;

•  the Group has the right to obtain substantially all of the economic benefits from use of the asset throughout the period of use; and

•  the Group has the right to direct the use of the asset. The Group has this right when it has the decision-making rights that are mostly 

relevant to changing how and for what purpose the asset is used. The Group has the right to direct the use of the asset if either: 

•  the Group has the right to operate the asset; or

•  the Group designed the asset in a way that predetermines how and for what purpose it will be used.

This policy is applied to contracts entered into, or changed, on or after 1 January 2019.

At inception or on reassessment of a contract that contains a lease component, the Group allocates the consideration in the contract to each 
lease component on the basis of their relative stand-alone prices.

(ii) As a lessee

The Group recognises a right of use asset and a lease liability at the lease commencement date. The right of use asset is initially measured 
at cost, which compromises the initial amount of the lease liability adjusted for any lease payments made on or before the commencement 
date, plus any initial direct costs incurred and an estimate of costs to dismantle and remove the underlying asset or to restore the underlying 
asset or the site on which it is located, less any lease incentives received.

The right of use asset is subsequently depreciated using the straight-line method from the commencement date to the earlier of the end 
of the useful life of the right of use asset or the end of the lease term. The estimated useful lives of right of use assets are determined on the 
same basis as those of property and equipment. In addition, the right of use asset is periodically reduced by impairment losses, if any, and 
adjusted for certain remeasurements of the lease liability.

The lease liability is initially measured at the present value of the lease payments that are not paid at the commencement date, discounted 
using the interest rate implicit in the lease, or if that rate cannot be readily determined, the Group’s incremental borrowing rate. Generally, the 
Group uses its incremental borrowing rate as the discount rate.

Lease payments included in the measurement of the lease liability comprise the following:

•  fixed payments, including in-substance fixed payments;

•  variable lease payments that depend on an index or a rate, initially measured using the index or rate as at the commencement date;

•  amounts expected to be payable under a residual value guarantee; and

•  the exercise price under a purchase option that the Group is reasonably certain to exercise, lease payments in an optional renewal period if 

the Group is reasonably certain to exercise an extension option, and penalties for early termination of a lease unless the Group is reasonably 
certain not to terminate early.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

85

Financial statementsNotes to the consolidated financial statements continued
For the year ended 31 December 2020

28. Significant accounting policies continued

(q) Leases continued

(ii) As a lessee continued

The lease liability is measured at amortised cost using the effective interest method. It is remeasured when there is a change in future lease 
payments arising from a change in an index or rate, if there is a change in the Group’s estimate of the amount expected to be payable under 
a residual value guarantee, or if the Group changes its assessment of whether it will exercise a purchase, extension or termination option.

When the lease liability is remeasured in this way, a corresponding adjustment is made to the carrying amount of the right of use asset 
or is recorded in profit or loss if the carrying amount of the right of use asset has been reduced to zero.

The Group presents right of use assets that do not meet the definition of investment property in “property, plant and equipment” and lease 
liabilities in “loans and borrowings” in the statement of financial position.

(iii) Short-term leases and leases of low-value assets

The Group has elected not to recognise right of use assets and lease liabilities for short-term leases that have a lease term of twelve months 
or less and leases of low-value assets, including IT equipment. The Group recognises the lease payments associated with these leases as 
an expense on a straight-line basis over the lease term.

(r) Operating loss

Operating loss is the result generated from the continuing principal revenue-producing activities of the Group as well as other income and 
expenses related to operating activities. Operating loss excludes net finance costs and income taxes.

(s) Fair value measurement

“Fair value” is the price that would be received to sell an asset or paid to transfer a liability in an orderly transaction between market 
participants at the measurement date in the principal or, in its absence, the most advantageous market to which the Group has access at that 
date. The fair value of a liability reflects its non-performance risk.

A number of the Group’s accounting policies and disclosures require the measurement of fair values, for both financial and non-financial 
assets and liabilities (see Note 23).

When one is available, the Group measures the fair value of an instrument using the quoted price in an active market for that instrument. 
A market is regarded as “active” if transactions for the asset or liability take place with sufficient frequency and volume to provide pricing 
information on an ongoing basis.

If there is no quoted price in an active market, then the Group uses valuation techniques that maximise the use of relevant observable inputs 
and minimise the use of unobservable inputs. The chosen valuation technique incorporates all of the factors that market participants would 
consider in pricing a transaction.

If an asset or a liability measured at fair value has a bid price and an ask price, then the Group measures assets and long positions at a bid 
price and liabilities and short positions at an ask price.

The best evidence of the fair value of a financial instrument on initial recognition is normally the transaction price – i.e. the fair value of the 
consideration given or received. If the Group determines that the fair value on initial recognition differs from the transaction price and the fair 
value is evidenced neither by a quoted price in an active market for an identical asset or liability nor based on a valuation technique for which 
any unobservable inputs are judged to be insignificant in relation to the measurement, then the financial instrument is initially measured at 
fair value, adjusted to defer the difference between the fair value on initial recognition and the transaction price. Subsequently, that difference 
is recognised in profit or loss on an appropriate basis over the life of the instrument but no later than when the valuation is wholly supported 
by observable market data or the transaction is closed out.

86

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

29. Standards issued but not yet effective

Several new standards are effective for annual periods beginning after 1 January 2021 and earlier application is permitted; however, 
the Group has not early adopted the new or amended standards in preparing these consolidated financial statements.

The following amended standards and interpretations are not expected to have a significant impact on the Group’s consolidated 
financial statements:

•  IFRS 17 “Insurance Contracts” (effective date 1 January 2023);

•  Classification of Liabilities as Current or Non-Current (Amendments to IAS 1) (effective date 1 January 2023);

•  Property, Plant and Equipment — Proceeds before Intended Use (Amendments to IAS 16) (effective date 1 January 2022);

•  Annual Improvements 2018-2020 Cycle (effective date 1 January 2022);

•  Reference to the Conceptual Framework (Amendments to IFRS 3) (effective date 1 January 2022);

•  Onerous Contracts — Cost of Fulfilling a Contract (Amendments to IAS 37) (effective date 1 January 2022);

•  Amendments to IFRS 17 (effective date 1 January 2023);

•  Extension of the Temporary Exemption from Applying IFRS 9 (Amendments to IFRS 4) (effective date 1 January 2023); and

•  Interest Rate Benchmark Reform Phase 2 (Amendments to IFRS 9, IAS 39, IFRS 7, IFRS 4 and IFRS 16) (effective date 1 January 2021).

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

87

Financial statementsFive-year record

31 December

Revenue

Revenue growth

Deferred revenue

Deferred revenue growth

Cash

Operating loss

Amortisation of intangible assets

Depreciation of property, plant and equipment

Exceptional items

EBITDA before exceptional items

Add back equity-settled share-based payment

Adjusted EBITDA before exceptional items

Development expenditure capitalised

2016

$’000

2017

$’000

2018

$’000

 2019

$’000

2020

$’000

11,379

19,637

17,019

16,155

10,532

4%

73%

(13%)

(5%)

(35%)

12,492

14,160

28%

13%

4,318

(70%)

3,810

(12%)

3,753

(1%)

7,558

27,396

10,757

23,354

21,039

(18,398)

(10,603)

(23,237)

(27,179)

(33,907)

8,466

6,699

6,475

215

—

388

—

5,701

1,101

—

5,070

1,203

—

(3,689)

(16,374)

(20,377)

(27,634)

3,109

6,977

8,707

5,403

(580)

(6,303)

(9,397)

(4,910)

(11,670)

(22,231)

(5,062)

(5,220)

174

32

(9,726)

2,262

(7,464)

(5,860)

Adjusted EBITDA before exceptional items including development expenditure

(13,324)

(6,883)

(14,307)

(16,732)

(27,451)

Note: 
•  The 2018 figures include the adoption of IFRS 15 “Revenue from Contracts with Customers” and the prior years have not been restated and are 

prepared on an IAS 18 basis.

•  The 2019 figures include the adoption of IFRS 16 “Leases” and the prior years have not been restated and are presented on an IAS 17 basis.

88

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

 
Notice of Annual General Meeting

Notice is given that the ninth Annual General Meeting of WANdisco plc (“the Company”) will be held at the UK Company’s offices, 
Castle House, 1–13 Angel Street, Sheffield S3 8LN, on 16 June 2021 at 10am for the following purposes:

To consider and, if thought fit, to pass the following resolutions as ordinary resolutions:

1. 

 That the Company’s financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2020, the Strategic report and the reports of the Directors 
and auditor thereon be received and considered.

2.   That Karl Monaghan be re-elected as a Director of the Company.

3.  That Bob Corey be re-elected as a Director of the Company.

4.  That BDO LLP be re-appointed as auditor of the Company.

5.  That the Directors be authorised to determine the remuneration of the auditor.

6. 

 That, in substitution for all existing authorities but without prejudice to any allotment, offer or agreement already made pursuant thereto, 
the Directors be and are hereby generally and unconditionally authorised pursuant to Article 2.3 of the Company’s Articles of Association 
(“the Articles”) to exercise all powers of the Company to allot, grant options over or otherwise dispose of relevant securities (as that term 
is defined in the Articles) in respect of up to an aggregate nominal amount of £1,983,287, provided that (unless previously revoked, varied 
or renewed) this authority shall expire on the earlier of the date which is 15 months after the date the resolution was passed and the 
conclusion of the next Annual General Meeting of the Company, save that the Company may before such expiry make an offer or 
agreement which would or might require relevant securities to be allotted after such expiry and the Directors may allot equity securities 
in pursuance of such an offer or agreement as if the power had not expired.

7. 

 That, pursuant to Article 58A(1)(b) of the Companies (Jersey) Law 1991 (“the Law”) and Article 13 of the Articles, an ordinary share 
purchased pursuant to resolution 9 below may be held by the Company as treasury shares in accordance with Articles 58A and 58B 
of the Law.

To consider and, if thought fit, to pass the following resolutions as special resolutions:

8. 

 That, subject to the passing of resolution 6 and pursuant to Article 2.10 of the Articles, the Directors be and are hereby generally 
empowered to allot, grant options over or otherwise dispose of equity securities (within the meaning of the Articles) wholly for cash, 
pursuant to the general authority described in resolution 6 above, as if pre-emption rights did not apply to any such allotment, such 
power being limited to:

8.1 

 the allotment of equity securities in connection with a rights issue, open offer or pre-emptive offer to holders on the register of 
the ordinary shares in the capital of the Company (“ordinary shares”) on a date fixed by the Directors where the equity securities 
respectively attributable to the interests of all those shareholders are proportionate (as nearly as practicable) to their respective 
holdings on that date subject to any exclusions or other arrangements as the Directors may consider necessary or expedient in 
relation to fractional entitlements, legal or practical problems under the law of any territory or the regulations or requirements 
of any relevant regulatory authority or stock exchange in any territory; and

8.2 

 the allotment (other than pursuant to resolution 8.1 above) wholly for cash of ordinary shares up to an aggregate nominal amount 
of £594,986,

 provided that (unless previously revoked, varied or renewed), such authorities shall expire on the earlier of the date which is 15 months 
after the date the resolution was passed and the conclusion of the next Annual General Meeting of the Company, save that the Company 
may before such expiry make an offer or agreement which would or might require equity securities to be allotted after such expiry and 
the Directors may allot equity securities in pursuance of such an offer or agreement as if the power had not expired.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

89

Financial statements 
 
 
Notice of Annual General Meeting continued

9. 

 That the Directors be and are hereby authorised pursuant to Article 13 of the Articles and Article 57 of the Law as amended to make 
market purchases of ordinary shares, subject to the following conditions:

9.1 

 the maximum number of ordinary shares authorised to be purchased may not be more than 15% of the issued share capital of the 
Company as at the date of this Notice;

9.2  the minimum price (exclusive of expenses) which may be paid for an ordinary share is £0.001; and

9.3  the maximum price (exclusive of expenses) which may be paid for an ordinary share shall not exceed:

9.3.1 

 an amount equal to 105% of the average middle market quotation for ordinary shares taken from the London Stock Exchange 
plc Daily Official List for the five business days immediately preceding the date on which such shares are to be contracted to 
be purchased; and

9.3.2 

 the higher of the price of the last independent trade and the highest current independent bid on the London Stock Exchange 
plc Daily Official List at the time, 

such authority to expire on the earlier of the date which is 15 months after the date the resolution was passed and the conclusion of the 
next Annual General Meeting of the Company, unless such authority is varied, revoked or renewed prior to such date.

By order of the Board

Larry Webster
Company Secretary
4 May 2021

Registered in Jersey under the Companies (Jersey) Law 1991 with company number 110497. 

Registered office

47 Esplanade 
St. Helier 
Jersey 
JE1 0BD

90

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Notes

The following notes explain your general rights as a shareholder and your right to attend and vote at this Meeting or to appoint someone else 
to vote on your behalf.

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

 To be entitled to attend and vote at the Meeting (and for the purpose of the determination by the Company of the number of votes they 
may cast), shareholders must be registered in the Register of Members of the Company at close of trading on 14 June 2021. Changes 
to the Register of Members after the relevant deadline shall be disregarded in determining the rights of any person to attend and vote 
at the Meeting. 

 Shareholders, or their proxies, intending to attend the Meeting in person are requested, if possible, to arrive at the Meeting venue at least 
20 minutes prior to the commencement of the Meeting at 10am (UK time) on 16 June 2021 so that their shareholding may be checked 
against the Company’s Register of Members and attendances recorded.

 Shareholders are entitled to appoint another person as a proxy to exercise all or part of their rights to attend and to speak and vote 
on their behalf at the Meeting. A shareholder may appoint more than one proxy in relation to the Meeting provided that each proxy 
is appointed to exercise the rights attached to a different ordinary share or ordinary shares held by that shareholder. A proxy need not 
be a shareholder of the Company. 

 In the case of joint holders, where more than one of the joint holders purports to appoint a proxy, only the appointment submitted by the 
most senior holder will be accepted. Seniority is determined by the order in which the names of the joint holders appear in the Company’s 
Register of Members in respect of the joint holding (the first named being the most senior).

 A vote withheld is not a vote in law, which means that the vote will not be counted in the calculation of votes for or against the resolution. 
If no voting indication is given, your proxy will vote or abstain from voting at his or her discretion. Your proxy will vote (or abstain from 
voting) as he or she thinks fit in relation to any other matter which is put before the Meeting.

6.  You can vote either:

•  by logging on to www.signalshares.com and following the instructions;

•  you may request a hard-copy form of proxy directly from the registrars, Link Group (previously called Capita), on Tel: 0371 664 0300. 
Calls are charged at the standard geographic rate and will vary by provider. Calls outside the United Kingdom will be charged at the 
applicable international rate. We are open between 9am and 5.30pm, Monday to Friday excluding public holidays in England and Wales; or

•  in the case of CREST members, by utilising the CREST electronic proxy appointment service in accordance with the procedures 

set out below.

 In order for a proxy appointment to be valid a form of proxy must be completed. In each case the form of proxy must be received by 
Link Group at PXS 1, Central Square, 29 Wellington Street, Leeds, LS1 4DL, by 10am on 14 June 2021.

 If you return more than one proxy appointment, either by paper or electronic communication, the appointment received last by 
the registrars before the latest time for the receipt of proxies will take precedence. You are advised to read the terms and conditions 
of use carefully. Electronic communication facilities are open to all shareholders and those who use them will not be disadvantaged.

 The return of a completed form of proxy, electronic filing or any CREST Proxy Instruction (as described in Note 11 below) will not prevent 
a shareholder from attending the Meeting and voting in person if he/she wishes to do so.

 CREST members who wish to appoint a proxy or proxies through the CREST electronic proxy appointment service may do so for the 
Meeting (and any adjournment of the Meeting) by using the procedures described in the CREST Manual (available from www.euroclear.
com/site/public/EUI). CREST personal members or other CREST sponsored members, and those CREST members who have appointed 
a service provider(s), should refer to their CREST sponsor or voting service provider(s), who will be able to take the appropriate action on 
their behalf.

7. 

8. 

9. 

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Financial statements 
Notice of Annual General Meeting continued

Notes continued

10.  In order for a proxy appointment or instruction made by means of CREST to be valid, the appropriate CREST message (“a CREST Proxy 
Instruction”) must be properly authenticated in accordance with Euroclear UK & Ireland Limited’s specifications and must contain the 
information required for such instructions, as described in the CREST Manual. The message must be transmitted so as to be received by 
the issuer’s agent (ID RA10) by 10am on 14 June 2021. For this purpose, the time of receipt will be taken to mean the time (as determined 
by the timestamp applied to the message by the CREST application host) from which the issuer’s agent is able to retrieve the message 
by enquiry to CREST in the manner prescribed by CREST. After this time, any change of instructions to proxies appointed through CREST 
should be communicated to the appointee through other means.

11.   CREST members and, where applicable, their CREST sponsors or voting service providers should note that Euroclear UK & Ireland Limited 
does not make available special procedures in CREST for any particular message. Normal system timings and limitations will, therefore, 
apply in relation to the input of CREST Proxy Instructions. It is the responsibility of the CREST member concerned to take (or, if the CREST 
member is a CREST personal member, or sponsored member, or has appointed a voting service provider(s), to procure that his CREST 
sponsor or voting service provider(s) take(s)) such action as shall be necessary to ensure that a message is transmitted by means of the 
CREST system by any particular time. In this connection, CREST members and, where applicable, their CREST sponsors or voting system 
providers are referred, in particular, to those sections of the CREST Manual concerning practical limitations of the CREST system and 
timings. The Company may treat as invalid a CREST Proxy Instruction in the circumstances set out in Article 34(1) of the Companies 
(Uncertificated Securities) (Jersey) Order 1999.

12.  Any corporation which is a shareholder can appoint one or more corporate representatives who may exercise on its behalf all of its 
powers as a shareholder provided that no more than one corporate representative exercises powers in relation to the same shares.

13.  As at 27 April 2021 (being the latest practicable business day prior to the publication of this Notice), the Company’s ordinary issued share 
capital consists of 59,498,595 ordinary shares, carrying one vote each. Therefore, the total voting rights in the Company as at 27 April 2021 
are 59,498,595.

14.  In the Company’s Articles of Association, Article 22.25 says: Where so requested in the manner set out in section 527(4) of the UK 

Companies Act 2006 by members who hold shares representing at least 10% of the paid up share capital of the Company (excluding 
treasury shares) and who have a right to vote at the general meeting at which the Company’s annual accounts are laid, the Company 
shall without prejudice to its obligations under the Companies Law publish on its website a statement setting out any matter relating 
to the audit of the Company’s accounts or any circumstances connected with an auditor of the Company ceasing to hold office, and the 
Company shall comply with all the obligations relating to the publication of such statement contained in the provisions of sections 527 
to 529 (other than sections 527(5) and 527(6)) of the UK Companies Act 2006, provided always that the Company shall not be required 
to comply with the obligation set out in section 527(1) of the UK Companies Act 2006 where the Board believes in good faith that the 
rights conferred by this Article 22 are being abused.

15.  Any shareholder attending the Meeting has the right to ask questions. The Company must cause to be answered any such question 

relating to the business being dealt with at the Meeting but no such answer need be given if: (a) to do so would interfere unduly with the 
preparation for the Meeting or involve the disclosure of confidential information; (b) the answer has already been given on a website in the 
form of an answer to a question; or (c) it is undesirable in the interests of the Company or the good order of the Meeting that the question 
be answered.

16.  The following documents are available for inspection during normal business hours at the registered office of the Company on any 

business day from the date of this Notice until the time of the Meeting and may also be inspected at the Meeting venue, as specified 
in this Notice, from 9.45am on the day of the Meeting until the conclusion of the Meeting:

•  copies of the Directors’ letters of appointment or service contracts.

A copy of this Notice can be found on the Company’s website at www.wandisco.com.

92

WANdisco plc Annual Report and Accounts 2020

Secretary, advisers and share capital information

Secretary 

Larry Webster 

Offices 

UK office 

Castle House 
1–13 Angel Street 
Sheffield S3 8LN

US office 

5000 Executive Parkway  
Suite 270  
San Ramon  
CA 94583 

Registered office 

47 Esplanade  
St. Helier  
Jersey JE1 0BD 

Company registered number 

110497 

Broker 

Stifel Nicolaus Europe Ltd 

150 Cheapside  
London EC2V 6ET 

Auditor 

BDO LLP 

55 Baker St  
Marylebone  
London W1U 7EU

Legal advisers 

Brown Rudnick LLP 

8 Clifford Street  
London W1S 2LQ 

Carey Olsen (Jersey) LLP 

47 Esplanade  
St. Helier  
Jersey JE1 0BD 

Bankers 

Silicon Valley Bank 

Alphabeta 
14–18 Finsbury Square  
London EC2A 1BR

HSBC Bank plc 

Yorkshire and North East Corporate Banking Centre  
4th Floor  
City Point  
29 King Street  
Leeds LS1 2HL 

Registrars 

Link Group 

10th Floor 
Central Square 
29 Wellington Street 
Leeds LS1 4DL 

Share capital 

The ordinary share capital of WANdisco plc is listed on AIM, a market 
operated by London Stock Exchange Group plc. The shares are listed 
under the trading ticker WAND. The ISIN number is JE00B6Y3DV84.

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CBP006839

WANdisco plc’s commitment to environmental issues is reflected in this 
Annual Report, which has been printed on Edixion, an FSC® certified material. 
This document was printed by Opal X using its environmental print 
technology, which minimises the impact of printing on the environment, 
with 99% of dry waste diverted from landfill. Both the printer and the 
paper mill are registered to ISO 14001.

Annual Report and Accounts 2020 WANdisco plc 

93

 
WANdisco plc 
47 Esplanade
St. Helier
Jersey JE1 OBD