Pulse Gains Access to more than 61,000 Customers

Pulse Gains Access to more than 61,000 Customers

The Directors of Pulse Utilities New Zealand Limited are delighted to announce that Pulse has secured on-going arrangements with a number of multi-tenant property developers and managers to install Pulse technology on their apartment blocks and residential subdivisions. Pulse will immediately begin installations on 2 apartment buildings with 500 tenants, and stage one of a residential subdivision with the first 100 homes. This opportunity has come about through the successful management of Pulse’s first customers.

The significance of this news is that Pulse’s five year target of 61,000 installations could now be completely derived from these property groups because they collectively manage more than this number. These arrangements reinforce Pulse’s strategy of acquiring customers in large groups. However, Pulse will likely be acquiring all its forecast 61,000 customers though property managers and developers, as opposed to a proportion from one-to-one sales, as was anticipated in the business plan. This will considerably reduce the sales costs to acquire these 61,000 customers. In addition, the Directors now believe that the target of 61,000 installations can be achieved in a much shorter time frame. This will have positive implications on the magnitude and timing of our revenues and profit. Pulse will be advising the market on updated figures in the near future.

An expanded service including electricity, and in some cases gas and water metering services will be offered to these customers. The gas and water metering services are new services Pulse will be offering off its existing technology platform. The Pulse service will remove the difficult billing process from some of the multi-tenanted property managers who currently have to manage the often contentious process of dividing one utility bill between tenants, and then billing and collecting payment. All customers are likely to receive cheaper electricity, with water and gas being passed through at cost.

Debt financing is now considered by the board to be more likely, particularly to fund meter asset acquisition and installation. Discussions have now commenced for debt funding in addition to equity. Pulse recently released to the market that it has a conditional commitment from a New Zealand lines company for $2 million and has since secured another $500,000 from a private investment fund. Both these are conditional on gaining a further $2 million in funding. The Board hopes to be able to announce the conclusion of both debt and equity funding discussions shortly.

ENDS

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