Rimini Street continues momentum, signals IPO
Rimini Street reported blow-out numbers for the last quarter ended 31 December 2012 and record sales for the full year.
From an email sent to me by the company:
Largest new sales quarter in company history with 40 new client transactions closed in Q4
$26.6. million in total Q4 invoicing, a growth of 61 percent over the same quarter a year ago
$558.5 million in sales bookings backlog, an increase of nearly 42 percent year over year
$43+ million in annual revenues for fiscal 2012, an increase of more than 30 percent year over year
Expanded global capabilities and workforce in Europe, India, and Brazil.
The company now counts 550 clients, so given the forward bookings number and deferred revenue figure of $44 million, it is reasonable to assume that most of the company's customers are signing off on very long-term deals. Add in the fact Rimini Street now counts 69 of the Fortune 500 and 15 of the Global 100, this is bad news for the SAP/Oracle hegemony. At least for the time being. It could get worse.
The company said that its customer count: "includes eight Fortune 500 added in the fiscal fourth quarter alone, and 17 Fortune 500 and two Global 100 clients added in fiscal 2012." The overall numbers remain small in the scale of things, but then anything ahead of 10 percent in any market has to be a good number.
Rimini Street is largely attacking the Oracle installed base, and while it is no surprise to hear them going after the legacy Siebel, Oracle E-Suite, JD Edwards, and PeopleSoft customers, it was a surprise to hear that it is winning business for supporting Oracle Hyperion, a revamped business intelligence solution launched late last year.
An interesting nugget right at the end of the press release quoted Seth Ravin, CEO: "we will continue to execute against our business plan for 2013 as we help many additional Oracle and SAP clients achieve their support and budgetary objectives and prepare for our planned IPO." IPO?
As many followers of this market will know, Rimini Street is locked in a death match with Oracle over the legitimacy of Rimini Street's business model. Ravin has always been bullish on the outcome, so to start talking about IPO suggests two things:
The company confidently expects to win its argument, likely to be fought out in court later this year
Forecast revenue for 2013 must be in the $100 million range.
That last number is the figure most investors want to see as the benchmark before going public.
2013 looks like being a fun-packed year for the company--one to watch.