Strong turnaround during Q3
After a difficult Q2, where the company suffered not only from the strong increase in merchant prices but also the lack of hedging given the strong volume rebound, the company saw a big turnaround during Q3 thanks to renegotiating contracts with SMEs and increasing hedging.
Long-term margin expansion depends on generation development
The energy crisis has provoked a long delay in Audax''s vertical integration plan. The company suffered from the cancelation of some PPA agreements plus a massive delay in its own generation platform (only c.40MW installed in 2021). This means that without a change in how it sources energy, we see a big improvement of the company''s profitability as unlikely. This is the main reason for the cut in our numbers. Although we expect a 3% EBITDA margin (vs 2.1% previously) in FY21 we have cut our estimates for 2022 (3.8% vs 7.0% prev.) and 2023 (5.5 vs 9.7% prev).
Next question: will the current balance sheet be enough to finance generation expansion
Audax has 2.5 GW of project pipeline in different stages of development. With the current leverage, plus the headwind of lower margins, we think that it could be complicated to develop the whole (or even 50% of the pipeline) without a capital increase. However, the company is looking at other alternatives, like selling minority stakes of existing projects (still only 145 MW of capacity installed) to finance growth.
We update our estimates and valuation range
We have cut our margin estimates for the following years on a worse sourcing mix, maintaining top line broadly unchanged. This implies a positive revision for 2022 (from EUR-12m NP to EUR2.6) but big negative revisions in 2022/23. The lower Capex than initially expected (due to delay in generation investment) has, on the contrary, a positive impact on FCF. We revise our valuation range from EUR1.6/2.4 to EUR1.1/1.9, assuming at the top of the range the full execution of the generation...

27 Jan 2022
Still suffering from the volatile environment


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Still suffering from the volatile environment
Strong turnaround during Q3
After a difficult Q2, where the company suffered not only from the strong increase in merchant prices but also the lack of hedging given the strong volume rebound, the company saw a big turnaround during Q3 thanks to renegotiating contracts with SMEs and increasing hedging.
Long-term margin expansion depends on generation development
The energy crisis has provoked a long delay in Audax''s vertical integration plan. The company suffered from the cancelation of some PPA agreements plus a massive delay in its own generation platform (only c.40MW installed in 2021). This means that without a change in how it sources energy, we see a big improvement of the company''s profitability as unlikely. This is the main reason for the cut in our numbers. Although we expect a 3% EBITDA margin (vs 2.1% previously) in FY21 we have cut our estimates for 2022 (3.8% vs 7.0% prev.) and 2023 (5.5 vs 9.7% prev).
Next question: will the current balance sheet be enough to finance generation expansion
Audax has 2.5 GW of project pipeline in different stages of development. With the current leverage, plus the headwind of lower margins, we think that it could be complicated to develop the whole (or even 50% of the pipeline) without a capital increase. However, the company is looking at other alternatives, like selling minority stakes of existing projects (still only 145 MW of capacity installed) to finance growth.
We update our estimates and valuation range
We have cut our margin estimates for the following years on a worse sourcing mix, maintaining top line broadly unchanged. This implies a positive revision for 2022 (from EUR-12m NP to EUR2.6) but big negative revisions in 2022/23. The lower Capex than initially expected (due to delay in generation investment) has, on the contrary, a positive impact on FCF. We revise our valuation range from EUR1.6/2.4 to EUR1.1/1.9, assuming at the top of the range the full execution of the generation...