This content is only available within our institutional offering.

20 Jan 2023
GBG : CMD – long term confidence alive and kicking - Buy

Sign in
This content is only available to commercial clients. Sign in if you have access or contact support@research-tree.com to set up a commercial account
This content is only available to commercial clients. Sign in if you have access or contact support@research-tree.com to set up a commercial account
GBG : CMD – long term confidence alive and kicking - Buy
GB Group PLC (GBG:LON) | 236 26 4.9% | Mkt Cap: 580.2m
- Published:
20 Jan 2023 -
Author:
Julian Yates | Roger Phillips -
Pages:
6 -
Doubling down on industry attractiveness. The 2022 revenue and demand ‘turbulence’ (e.g., crypto) and underlying growth softening sparked some debate around the attractiveness of the market. These near-term challenges have not diminished the group’s confidence on the structural market drivers. Digital Fraud is accelerating, driving all aspects of GBG’s business, setting the case for strong structural industry drivers ahead. Matched with a fragmented market, with ample scope for geographic and sectorial expansion (once the near term headwinds are navigated), there was strong confidence in the resumption of a 12-14% growth delivery.
Competitive positioning. GBG has set its stall out as being the best in class end to end suite provider (breath, depth, data sets, product and tech capabilities), which supports pricing, drives competitive wins and offers upsell/cross sell gains. Examples were given of cross sells between Acuant (transactional monitoring, documents verification) and Idology (KYC). Prior to 2022, GBG’s NRR was 105-108%, a level seen as realistic ahead. Combined with a three pronged (direct, partner, self-serve) and maturing route to market, with partner and self-serve to accelerate, this all supports the confidence in the mid- to long-term financial ambitions.
Financials. Maintaining market leadership costs with operational leverage beyond 23-24% is limited, with investment required to keep solutions ahead of the pack in an ever evolving digital fraud backdrop. Implied 2026 ambitions are £400m revenue and £100m operating profit. First, however, near term headwinds need to be navigated, with our FY24E below consensus.
View. Once consensus aligns, the debate can move to these strategic themes. Even with numbers below ambitions (we forecast FY24E 8% rev growth and 22% margins) the stock looks good value at 400p (c.20x PE), a good starting point with material upside beyond that if faith in target delivery is restored.