Nice win. It not only adds to the small but steady stream of new contracts, but was won via competitive tender in a new geography etc, proving that ALC CAN win ... thats a positive for me.

With $30.8m in the bag and with the big North Cumbria deal imminent, I think there is every chance of making the $36m breakeven and cash flow point this FY25.

So long as contracts are coming through the door and adding to TCV, I am unconcerned with when revenue is recognised - that is just pure accounting timing. It all eventually flows to the bottom line anyway.

I do think ALC is back on the positive march, one contract at a time, albeit at a slower and steadier cadence. Having patiently (and painfully) held through the slump of the past 1.5-2 years, and seeing the basic requirements of a good turnaround still being in place (stable revenue base, steady contracts, market opportunity is still wide open, steady collections, leaner cost base, good balance sheet with no debt), I do cautiously feel that things might just have turned around and we are now headed for better times. Onward and upward!

Discl: Held IRL and in SM

I'm encouraged by this win. Kate did say in the last meeting that there was a lot of tender activity going on so it's good to see a few wins coming from that. If they can get a few more and keep the costs under control, then I think they could really get some momentum.

@Strawman you mention the hubris of management and the mistakes they made gearing up too early before the money was flowing in. I remember talking to a business guy who had a staff member make a big mistake and cost him a fortune. The staff member was very remorseful, but also had some talent and the guy could see he had potential. His dilemma was does he sack him for costing him a fortune, or does he take a different view and think he's just spent a fortune training him because let's be honest, only an idiot would stuff up like that again!

Hopefully Kate and the team have learned how to walk the fine line between cost control and adequate resourcing without blowing up too much cash.

Agree @Bushmanpat . IT resourcing has and will always be a fine line.

Planets very rarely align such that you have the holy grail of chargeable work/contracts at the very same time you have trained/experienced resources available and ready to go.

The other approach is you save cost by assuming you can staff a project once its sold. You can get away with this in a big SAP-like ERP where team sizes are big, but in smaller and industry-centric deployments, which I think ALC would be, this lack of knowledgeable resources would be glaring as hell.

Having experienced both scenarios as supplier and customer, I actually didn't think ALC did the wrong thing by lining up resources ahead of contract, training them etc. It demonstrated that Kate was taking a longer term view of ensuring deployments were done right etc, which is always the "better" thing to do, from a long term perspective.

I do feel she has learnt from the cost and capital raise dramas. Cost containment has been front and centre in all the Quarterlies since and she has been noticeably more measured when talking about the opportunities to temper expectations.

I just hope ALC does not lurch to the other side where they do not have trained resources ready to go when the contracts roll in - that would have far greater negative long term connotations, particularly as the healthcare sector in the UK is so credentials-centric.