LandMark White drops revenue forecast by $11.5m after data breach

ASX-listed property valuer LandMark White says it estimates a data breach has already cost it $5-6 million in revenue, and that it expects to take an additional $1 million hit to its income. Today it revised downwards its full year revenue forecast to $43.5 million from $55 million.

The company now expects negative EBITDA of $1.5 million and a net loss after tax of $2.3 million; previously it forecast EBITDA of $5.3 million and net profit after tax of $2.8 million.

LMW in February revealed that a range of client data was inadvertently exposed through an S3 bucket. In the wake of the breach, which led to customer data being posted on a ‘darkweb’ forum, Australia’s major banks suspended their use of the firm’s valuation services.

LMW has twice this year entered into a trading halt in the wake of the incident, most recently in late February.

In March, CEO Chris Coonan left the company as it worked to address the fallout from the incident. Timothy Rabbitt, former CEO of Taylor Byrne, has been acting as chief executive since Coonan departed.

Major banks have been progressively reinstating LMW to their valuation panels, and the Commonwealth Bank has worked with the company to boost its security posture.

LMW today said that it had “incurred significant costs upgrading cyber security measures”.

“These new security measures will incur higher ongoing maintenance costs but are critical to ensure we maintain an appropriately high level of data security,” a statement from the company said.

LMW said it is currently working towards a medium-term goal of ISO27001 certification.

Three of Australia’s big four banks have reinstated LMW as a panel valuer, and the company expects the fourth to follow suit shortly. Other lenders have also begun using the company’s services again, it said.

“I look forward to the normalisation of revenue streams after this incident and particularly the opportunity that has stemmed from our building a more robust security framework which has put LMW in a good position to develop and seize further growth opportunities,” chair Keith Perret said in a statement.