Investors holding Fintel (FNTL) shares learned this week that the company’s Fintel EBITDA margin expansion is running well ahead of its top-line growth, with organic adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, stripping out acquisition effects) rising 11.2% to £11.8 million in the six months ended 30 June 2026, even as organic revenue grew only 2% to £37.4 million. The figures come from an unaudited trading update published Thursday.
The gap between those two growth rates is the story. Organic adjusted EBITDA margin widened to 31.6% from 28.9% in the comparable half, meaning Fintel kept more of each pound of revenue than it did a year ago.
Two Revenue Lines, One Margin Direction
Fintel’s business splits into Software and Data, and Services. Software and Data organic revenue rose 2.9% to £18.9 million; Services grew 1.1% to £18.5 million. Neither rate is especially fast, but both segments fed into the margin improvement rather than dragging against it.
On a continuing-operations basis, which adds the acquired Pearson Ham market pricing business, revenue reached £38.6 million, up 5.3%, and adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations rose 16.6% to £12.4 million.
The Fintel H1 2026 trading update also shows that total adjusted EBITDA, including the discontinued businesses that were sold during the period, came in at £12.7 million, up 13.3% from £11.2 million in H1 2025. Discontinued operations contributed £0.3 million of that total, down from £0.6 million a year earlier, which illustrates why the disposals were sensible: those units were a shrinking profit contributor.
Statutory revenue, which folds in those discontinued operations, slipped 0.6% to £42.1 million from £42.4 million. The disposed units generated £3.5 million of revenue in the first half, down from £5.7 million in the prior comparable period.
What Fintel’s EBITDA Margin Expansion Means for Investors
The recurring revenue mix is the engine. SaaS and subscription sales (software delivered as a service, typically billed monthly or annually) reached £26.1 million, up 7.9% from £24.2 million, and accounted for roughly 68% of continuing revenue in the half. Growing that base faster than the overall business is how Fintel is pulling margins higher without needing to accelerate total revenue.
Chief Executive Matt Timmins said the company had expanded recurring revenue and delivered double-digit EBITDA growth. ‘We remain confident in delivering further strategic and financial progress in 2026,’ he said.
For context on valuation, Yahoo Finance showed Fintel trading at approximately £1.99 per share as of 31 July 2026, against analyst price targets ranging from £2.88 to £3.60, with an average of £3.26. That implies a meaningful gap between the current price and where analysts collectively expect the stock to trade, though price targets are not guarantees.
Pearson Ham: Deal Structure and Early Contribution
Fintel completed the Pearson Ham market pricing acquisition in January through its Defaqto unit. The headline price was £11 million, but the Fintel acquisition RNS on Investegate shows the structure: an initial cash payment of £7.5 million and deferred consideration of £3.5 million. That deferred element (money paid to the seller at a later date, typically contingent on performance or simply timed) reduces the immediate cash outlay.
Defaqto described the acquired business as ‘a profitable, growing, cash generative business with a rich historic data set.’ In its February 2026 trading update, Fintel said the deal was expected to be earnings accretive (adding to per-share profit, not diluting it) for the full year ending 31 December 2026, with integration into the Software and Data division supported by a unified product and sales team and a single customer data view to accelerate cross-selling.
In the first half, Pearson Ham contributed £1.2 million of revenue and £0.6 million of adjusted EBITDA, a margin of 50%. That is well above the group average, which supports the earnings-accretive case.
Disposals, New Products and the Balance Sheet
In April, Fintel sold Gateway Surveying Services and APS Legal and Associates to a company controlled by former joint chief executive Neil Stevens for up to £1 million. Those operations produced combined revenue of £11.2 million and EBITDA of £0.9 million in 2025, an EBITDA margin of roughly 8%. Compared with the group’s 30% margin at the time of the sale, cutting them loose was arithmetically sensible.
New product launches in the half included Omnicore, a mortgage and protection distribution platform, and Trust, an AI-based compliance and oversight product entering a market where regulatory scrutiny of AI governance is intensifying. Defaqto’s Matrix360 now serves 26 institutional insurance customers. Fintel has not yet disclosed revenue from any of the three.
On the balance sheet, net debt stood at £38.2 million, with £7.3 million in cash and £76.5 million of undrawn capacity under a £120 million revolving credit facility (a flexible borrowing line the company can draw down and repay as needed). Leverage (net debt divided by EBITDA) sits at 1.4 times, leaving room for further bolt-on activity without straining the facility.
Fintel was founded in 2002 and rebranded from The SimplyBiz Group plc to Fintel Plc in March 2021. Full results for the first half are expected on 15 September 2026. The board’s full-year expectations remain unchanged, making that September publication the next binary point for holders watching whether the margin story holds at scale.
