Sumo is trading strongly, with several drivers that could lead the company to outperform 2021 earnings expectations, in our view. Even based on conservative earnings expectations, we believe shares offer attractive value to growth.
Companies: Sumo Group Plc
H1 results were ahead of our estimates. However, excluding select factors, profits were well above our expectations. Sumo’s strong underlying results positions it to outperform current market expectations. In addition, Sumo announced the acquisition of Pipeworks, which we estimate could drive 18% earnings accretion even based on conservative forecasts. Given the relatively modest share price reaction, Sumo now trades at a lower multiple than prior to the acquisition.
ABB to raise £13.7m for M&A; Reiterate Buy
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AGM statement: upbeat
The company provided a solid update, stating that trading was “comfortably in line with market expectations”. Sumo plans to accelerate acquisitions since recruitment is expected to “remain challenging for some time”. We believe the change is marginal and see acquisitions well supported by Sumo's disciplined acquisition criteria, proven integration process and balanced earnout structures. Sumo remains focused on delivering earnings accretive acquisitions. We make no changes to forecasts and continue to highlight Sumo’s low valuation multiples relative to peers.
History indicates that the emergence of cloud gaming and game subscription services could significantly increase investment in video game content, industry employment and the number of production companies, thereby leaving Sumo well positioned for growth.
Acquisition of Lab42
This morning Sumo announced the acquisition of Lab42, a cross-platform provider of co-development and full game development services, for $0.6m. The acquisition underpins growth while adding IP and new client relationships. Lab42 is a small, low-risk acquisition. We make no changes to our forecasts.
FY2019: Headline nos. as expected; we trim FY20E
Sumo is well positioned in the current environment with a high level of contracted revenues and continued robust market demand for its services and technologies. Sumo is also managing the transition to remote working well and the company has ample liquidity to pursue its medium term plans. Despite its favourable positioning and financials, management prudently outlined a possible EBITDA impact from the crisis. We conservatively factor this scenario into our forecasts and lower our 2021 Adjusted EBITDA by 14% to £14.0m from £16.3m. However, we retain our 2021 Adjusted EBITDA estimate. We believe a full recovery by 2021 is reasonable given that Sumo is a well-managed company in a strong market. We believe Sumo’s ideal combination of lower-risk business model and IP-driven margin potential is undervalued by the market. Despite these attractive investment characteristics, shares trade at an 18% discount to peers.
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IQE has announced it expects FY20 revenues to be c £178m. This is ahead of our estimates, which we revised upwards in November, reflecting outperformance in both the wireless and photonics segments. We have updated our FY20 forecasts. Given IQE’s leveraged business model, this results in a 64% uplift in EPS. Noting the uncertainty about the effect of a pandemic-related recession on the rate of smartphone sales growth, we leave our FY21 estimates unchanged for the time being.
Companies: IQE plc
As a nation, we love knocking ourselves. However in truth, we’re actually a pretty pioneering bunch. For instance, the experts at Oxford University & AstraZeneca have developed one of the world’s 3 most important vaccines in double quick time. Plus, many other British firms are creating similar breakthrough Covid inventions, such as Kromek.
Companies: Kromek Group Plc
Synairgen (SNG.L): Completion of recruitment for at home trial | Sensyne Health (SENS.L): Research agreement with The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust
Companies: Synairgen plc (SNG:LON)Sensyne Health Plc (SENS:LON)
Sopheon’s trading update for the end of 2020 shows that the historical weighting to Q4 for revenues again produced a strong end to the year, ahead of Q4 2019. Revenue is expected to total around $30.0m with Adjusted EBITDA of c. $5.6m. We reintroduce estimates for FY 2020E which reflect those numbers. The proportion of recurring revenue increased again during FY 2020E. That mix shift within strong sales bookings growth of 23% during the year means that much of the associated revenue will be recognised future years. With ongoing sales traction, we continue to see Sopheon as well-positioned with highly appropriate solutions which meet the needs of businesses to innovate and digitalise at a faster pace. Sopheon is proving itself highly capable of selling despite the Covid-19 challenges, and we believe the group’s products will become more relevant and more in demand precisely because of the race to digitalisation that Covid has so clearly accelerated.
Companies: Sopheon plc
ZOO’s trading update in advance of its March year-end suggests that visibility continues to improve, and major new client projects have continued to deliver. A combination of a material back-catalogue focus across the industry, a growing acceptance of cloud-based dubbing, and a very modest return to new content production have combined to produce a robust outcome for FY21E, and we upgrade estimates. Just as importantly, the outlook for FY22 and beyond continues to improve, giving management confidence to invest in expanding ZOO’s dubbing service into new markets.
Companies: ZOO Digital Group plc
MySale has delivered a striking turnaround in profitability with H1 FY21 EBITDA of A$2.5m up an impressive A$6.1m YOY. We believe this marked turnaround validates its AZN First strategy and signals the Group now has a robust and cash generative operating platform on which it can scale.
Companies: MySale Group plc
The Panoply has reported a very positive trading update for the Q3 to December and indicates that full year results for the year to March will be significantly ahead of expectations. The group won £15m of new contracts in Q3, including the significant assignment from the Planning Inspectorate announced at the November interims. This further demonstrates the successful development of the group, notably its expansion into healthcare and establishment of FutureGov and Foundry4 as full-service brands. In November we raised our FY21 Revenue and PBT forecasts by +5%/+10% to £44.5m/£4.9m and we further raise by +8% to £48.0m/£5.3m this morning. We choose to leave our FY22 estimates unchanged at this stage, but clearly the group has very strong momentum and we see clear scope to raise our forecasts as we progress through the year. We continue to view The Panoply as ideally placed to benefit from the structural tailwinds in digital transformation and, underpinned by our increased forecasts, raise our target price to 235p (was 220p).
Companies: Panoply Holdings Plc
GB Group (GBG) has sold its marketing services business to HH Global Group for an undisclosed amount. This was not an area of focus for GBG and has been in managed decline for several years. Just before Christmas, GBG boosted its Fraud business with the acquisition of fraud investigation automation software from HooYu for £4m in equity. We have revised our forecasts to reflect the disposal and acquisition, leading to small upgrades to our EPS forecasts. Both deals emphasise the company’s strategy to focus on Identity, Location and Fraud.
Companies: GB Group PLC
FY20E order intake growth of 61% means Corero's revenue for last year of $16.8m will exceed our prior forecast. The trading update confirms c73% annual growth in revenues and further expansion of the annualised recurring revenue base. This performance highlights the increasing prioritisation of protecting networks against cyber and DDoS attacks. Buy.
Companies: Corero Network Security plc
EMIS saw trading gradually improve through H220 to finish the year slightly ahead of expectations. The company continued to support customers in dealing with the pandemic, with the recently acquired Pinnacle Systems’ software now being used in the nationwide vaccination programme. Progress was also made in product development with the launch of the first EMIS-X analytics product. We maintain our forecasts.
Companies: EMIS Group plc
Strong Q4 performance from Audioboom plc, the leading global podcast company, as it continues to outpace the global podcasting market. Audioboom bounced back from the Q2 CV-19 lull in Q3 and growth accelerated in the final quarter. Q4 revenue of c. $8.5m was a record, up 25% on the same period last year and the previous record, and FY20 revenue of c. $26.8m (+20%) was comfortably ahead of forecast (ACLe: $25.5m). There were also record KPI performances (brand count, eCPM and available ad inventory). Coupled with continued cost control, adj. EBITDA loss fell to c. $0.2m in Q4 and c. $1.8m for FY20 (FY19: $2.9m, ACLe: $1.9m). The company has good access to capital ($6.6m at year end) and management expects to achieve a maiden positive adj. EBITDA for FY21. We introduce FY21 forecasts and set a fair value of 420p/share, equivalent to an FY20 EV/Revenue of 3.3x and 2.5x FY21. Although a premium to the current price, this still represents a significant discount to recent industry transaction multiples.
Companies: Audioboom Group PLC
Sage Group released a good set of Q1 20/21 figures with organic recurring revenue growth of 4.7% in line with the full-year guidance (+3-5%). This performance was spread out across various cloud native software and essentially driven by the gain of new customers. Lastly, no deterioration in the churn rate is reassuring considering the continuing tough market conditions. All in all, Sage Group confirmed FY2020/21 guidance.
Companies: Sage Group plc
ZOO’s H1 FY21 included a tumultuous few months as COVID-19 effectively shut off work on new media content production which impacted subtitling projects, but studios rapidly adopted Cloud-based dubbing and the group’s digital packaging business enjoyed a dramatic rebound in fortunes. We note the positive commentary in today’s RNS and upgrade our FY21E and FY22E estimates to reflect the recent performance and, in particular, the exceptionally strong H2 trading that the group is enjoying.
The Panoply’s update on trading for the three months ending 31 December 2020 confirms the group has enjoyed a successful third quarter and continues the trend of positive news flow from the group. Against the backdrop of COVID-19 driven macro-economic challenges, The Panoply has reported an acceleration of new business wins. In our view this further validates both the Panoply’s innovative business model and with operations now focussed on two full-stack brands, demonstrates the strategic value of the acquisitions made to date. Management has increased guidance on FY 21E performance, and we take the company’s cue and revise our revenue and adjusted EBITDA forecasts upwards by 8% and 10% respectively.
VR Education Holdings (VRE) expects FY20 revenue growth of around 38% to €1.42m. This was driven by substantial growth in ENGAGE revenue and its user base, with ENGAGE now accounting for over 40% of group revenue. While ENGAGE benefited from changes resulting from COVID, they also caused museum closures, which reduced Showcase Experience revenues. VRE has also outlined its medium-term outlook objectives for 2023 – 2025. Key targets include ENGAGE revenue of €10m, 500 active enterprise customers and 100K monthly users.
Companies: VR Education Holdings PLC
