This content is only available within our institutional offering.

30 Jun 2020
GBG : Strong FY20, balancing the puts and takes ahead - 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 : Strong FY20, balancing the puts and takes ahead - Buy
GB Group PLC (GBG:LON) | 257 14.1 2.2% | Mkt Cap: 630.7m
- Published:
30 Jun 2020 -
Author:
Julian Yates | Roger Phillips -
Pages:
6 -
Numbers. Revenue +10.7% organic cc to £199.1m, with £47.9m profit. FY20 net debt £35m, at 0.7x leverage with 95% cash conversion enabling £24.9m debt repayment. End May net debt is £20.1m and leverage 0.4x. As previously indicated, a dividend will not be paid and forecast guidance is removed.
FY20. It was a strong year with 11% cc organic growth with Identity up c12 %, Fraud growing 24% and Location up 7% which saw some high profile wins (Nike, Adidas, Wish.com) which will contribute to FY21. Our new forecasts are shown below. Overall, COVID-19 had a c1% impact on growth mostly felt in Asia Pac. Idology has proved a big success with trading ahead of initial expectations.
Current trading. Trends are similar to those outlined at the April update with ‘at risk’ customer segments seeing a fall-off in volumes (eg leisure, retail, travel) which account for c25% of group sales. Financial services is still proving to be resilient (45% of group sales) but we expect this will start to weaken as recessionary forces take grip in local economies, leading to a softening in transactional volumes across a greater part of GBG’s customer base in FY21.
Positives. COVID-19 has prompted more on-line transitions leading to higher volumes in some customers. Ultimately, this accelerated shift to digitisation globally bodes well for GBG’s long term growth and we see it emerging competitively stronger from this cycle, considering its diversified customer base and solutions are likely to drive a more consistent and broad recovery.
Costs. GBG has taken discretionary cost action (pay / hiring freezes etc) which will lead to flat opex yoy after accounting for FY20 investments. Platform development of the three product pillars is crucially on-going, largely with incremental product improvements and sales force expansion paused. We forecast c11% sales decline and flat opex which we expect to refine ahead.
View. GBG will trade through the cycle, but it could be a couple of years before historic profits levels are reached. Valuation could limit material upside for now but the long term growth opportunity remains. We retain Buy with a 800p TP.