EQS Group — COVID-19 tailwinds

EQS Group (SCALE: EQS)

Last close As at 25/04/2024

40.80

−0.40 (−0.97%)

Market capitalisation

409m

More on this equity

Research: TMT

EQS Group — COVID-19 tailwinds

EQS delivered a good first half performance, boosted by companies’ needs to adapt their communications strategies to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Revenue guidance for the year has been tilted to the higher end of the previous range and EBITDA guidance lifted by €0.5m to €4.0–5.0m. The consensus EBITDA forecast is now €4.7m, rising to €7.2m for FY21e as the scalability of the platform helps improve margins. With EQS now past peak investment in its cloud-based COCKPIT software, free cash flow is on a clear improving trend. The share price has recovered well from March’s market setback, trading near parity to peers on FY21e EV/EBITDA.

Fiona Orford-Williams

Written by

Fiona Orford-Williams

Director, TMT

TMT

EQS Group

COVID-19 tailwinds

Media

Scale research report - Update

20 August 2020

Price

€111

Market cap

€159m

Share price graph

Share details

Code

EQS

Listing

Deutsche Börse Scale

Shares in issue

1.44m

Net debt at 30 June 2020 (non-IFRS)

€3.7m

Business description

EQS Group is a leading international provider of regulatory technology in the fields of corporate compliance and investor relations. Its products enable corporate clients to fulfil complex national and international disclosure obligations, minimise risks and communicate transparently with stakeholders.

Bull

Market need for COVID-19 compatible corporate communications.

Financial market regulation.

High percentage of recurring and repeatable income.

Bear

COVID-19 impact on corporate health.

Some macro sensitivity.

Dividend payment on hold.

Analyst

Fiona Orford-Williams

+44 (0)20 3077 5739

EQS delivered a good first half performance, boosted by companies’ needs to adapt their communications strategies to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Revenue guidance for the year has been tilted to the higher end of the previous range and EBITDA guidance lifted by €0.5m to €4.0–5.0m. The consensus EBITDA forecast is now €4.7m, rising to €7.2m for FY21e as the scalability of the platform helps improve margins. With EQS now past peak investment in its cloud-based COCKPIT software, free cash flow is on a clear improving trend. The share price has recovered well from March’s market setback, trading near parity to peers on FY21e EV/EBITDA.

Pandemic boosts corporate communications

Having delivered a positive first quarter EBITDA for the first time since Q117, Q220 progress was stronger still, building from €0.8m to €2.2m. The need for companies to communicate, particularly in the early phases of lockdown, helped drive Investor Relations revenues ahead by 28% over H119 (adjusted for the ARIVA disposal in July 2109). News revenues were up by 26% and there was a 98% uplift in video and audio webcasts revenue versus H119. EQS also ran over 50 virtual AGMs in the period, permitted under new COVID-19-specific regulation. On the downside, there were only six IPOs and the sales cycle for new clients was elongated. Despite this, Compliance revenues were up 16% on the prior year (adjusted for ARIVA).

Building recurring revenues and controlling costs

The group added 151 new SaaS customers in H1 (Q1: +64, Q2: +87), in line with the expectations for the year of adding 300–350 (albeit at the lower end), logging €2.9m of newly acquired annualised recurring revenue. There is a structural lag in these new revenues being reflected in the reported revenue numbers, which gives a degree of confidence in FY21e forecasts. With the new phase of the group’s development, software development costs are reduced and there has been close control of spending due to COVID-19, with H120 operating expenses 2% lower than H119. Management could accelerate the margin expansion, but its ambitions are more centred on sustainable growth. This requires increased sales and marketing spend, as well as client account management.

Valuation: Strong recovery on good progress

Having been marked down sharply with the market in March, EQS’s share price has since more than doubled as it has become clearer that the group is a potential beneficiary of the circumstances. The strong forecast progress on EBITDA for FY21e now puts the shares near parity to larger global peers on EV/EBITDA.

Consensus estimates

Year
end

Revenue (€m)

PBT*
(€m)

EPS*
(€)

DPS
(€)

P/E
(x)

EV/EBITDA
(x)

12/18

36.2

(0.1)

0.75

0.00

N/A

N/A

12/19

35.4

(0.3)

(0.90)

0.00

N/A

65.1

12/20e

37.3

(0.2)

(0.41)

0.00

N/A

35.5

12/21e

43.3

2.6

1.73

0.13

66.9

23.2

Source: Refinitiv. Note: *Historical adjustments to PBT and EPS are as per Refinitiv.

Edison Investment Research provides qualitative research coverage on companies in the Deutsche Börse Scale segment in accordance with section 36 subsection 3 of the General Terms and Conditions of Deutsche Börse AG for the Regulated Unofficial Market (Freiverkehr) on Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse (as of 1 March 2017). Two to three research reports will be produced per year. Research reports do not contain Edison analyst financial forecasts.

Strong progress in H120

The effect of the pandemic on corporate concerns has been considerable across H120, with the consequences for EQS mostly favourable. We had been anticipating that FY20 would be the year that the earlier cloud investment programme would start to pay off, particularly in the Compliance segment, where regulation and complexity have been greatly increasing the burden on companies trying to fulfil their obligations. The COVID-19 boost has been more strongly felt in the Investor Relations segment, as shown in the exhibit below.

Financials by quarter

Exhibit 1: Quarterly financials

€000s

Q119

Q219

H119

Q120

Q220

H120

– Compliance Cloud

2,270

2,390

4,660

2,670

2,870

5,540

– Growth y-o-y

18%

20%

19%

– Compliance Service

1,200

2,300

3,500

1,520

2,360

3,880

– Growth y-o-y

27%

3%

11%

Compliance

3,470

4,690

8,160

4,190

5,230

9,420

– Growth y-o-y

20%

12%

15%

– IR Cloud

1,180

1,100

2,280

1,670

1,750

3,420

– Growth y-o-y

42%

59%

50%

– IR Service

2,240

2,510

4,750

2,490

3,120

5,610

– Growth y-o-y

11%

24%

18%

IR

3,420

3,610

7,030

4,160

4,870

9,030

– Growth y-o-y

22%

35%

28%

Revenue

6,890

8,316

15.206

8,350

10,104

18,454

Growth y-o-y

21%

22%

21%

EBITDA ex IFRS 16*

(889)

126

(763)

310

1,710

2,020

Margin %

(12.9%)

1.5%

(5.0%)

3.7%

16.9%

10.9%

EBITDA

(428)

321

(107)

799

2,197

2,996

Margin %

(6.2%)

3.9%

(0.7%)

9.6%

21.7%

16.2%

Source: EQS Group, Edison Investment Research. Note: *IFRS 16 not adopted retrospectively; comparisons exclude ARIVA (disposed July 2019); segments may not tally due to rounding.

Management has clarified the elements currently delivered within these segments, which should make it easier to identify trends in future reporting periods.

Exhibit 2: Product offering segmentation

Compliance

Investor Relations

Cloud (SaaS)

Disclosure

Newswire

Integrity line

CRM

Policy manager

Mailing

Insider manager

Investors

Approval manager

Service

Filings (to Federal Gazette)

Websites

Legal entity identifiers (LEI)

Webcasts

Tools

Reports

Virtual AGM

Media

Source: EQS Group

The cloud-based offerings are the key to the group’s scalability, with the scope of the individual offerings circumscribed by the regulations in any region rather than the need to be tailored by client. New regulations, such as the whistleblowing rules being introduced in the EU from December 2021, give new opportunities to cross-sell to existing clients. They also give a good opportunity to sell into new clients, which can then be introduced to other elements of the offering.

There are competitors, but they tend to be either local specialists (by market or by activity) or the large US-based suppliers. To our knowledge, there is currently no other pan-European provider with the breadth of product offering and/or cloud-based delivery.

Investment versus margin management

While the initial sale is inevitably a hurdle, once a client relationship is established, EQS can concentrate on the cross- and up-sells of additional software functionality – the key driver of medium-term growth. The pandemic has undoubtedly made it more time-consuming to get new clients across the line, but there has been good progress.

As can be seen in Exhibit 1 above, there has been a substantial step up in EBITDA margin in H120. Management guides to a current year range for both revenue and EBITDA and also gives its ambitions for FY25e. FY20 revenue forecasts imply H2 revenues of €18.9m, just a little ahead of the €18.5m achieved in H120. The consensus EBITDA forecast of €4.7m compares to a guided range of €4.0–5.0m. This therefore assumes a dip in EBITDA margin for the second half back down to 8.9%. Some of this reflects higher operating costs with an element of loosening of the restraints imposed on cash utilisation in response to the pandemic (travel, recruitment etc). The larger element, though, is greater investment in the group’s go-to-market strategy. This is particularly focused on improving EQS’s online presence, through advertising but also through more strategic use of platforms such as LinkedIn, for disseminating thought leadership pieces, and through activities such as its first European Compliance & Ethics Conference (ECEC) this October.

The likely retrenchment in H220 EBITDA margin to 8.9% as per consensus, from the 16.2% achieved in H120, is therefore down to a deliberate investment in building longer-term sustainability. Market forecasts for FY21 assume that the EBITDA margin moves ahead to 16.5%. A higher figure could be justified on a short-term horizon, but management’s ambitions to FY25 are for group revenue to reach €100m. Compliance is the larger growth driver, taking it to 68% of the group from 56% in FY19. The anticipated CAGR for Compliance is in a range of 20–30% as systems and reporting are increasingly digitised and automated, on an ever-growing burden of regulation on corporate entities.

The group has a sound balance sheet to realise these ambitions. Net debt at the end of June was €3.7m on a non-IFRS basis (€10.5m including leases). With capital investment now more at maintenance levels, free cash flow is likely to be positive, reducing debt levels.

Valuation

A reverse DCF, using a WACC of 8% and a terminal growth rate of 2% beyond 2025, suggests that the current share price is discounting a CAGR for revenue from FY21–25e of just 8% on an EBITDA margin of 20% throughout this period. This revenue growth rate is well below management’s expectations, which imply a revenue CAGR of 18.9% through to FY25, and the EBITDA margin of 20% is significantly below the 30% expected by management by FY25.

The scale of the internal investment has affected recent profitability and the most reliable traditional multiple has therefore been that of EV/sales. There is a wide range of multiples for the peer group, as shown below. For FY20, EQS is trading at 4.5x sales versus the median for the entire peer group of 12.1x. With EQS’s EBITDA forecasts now rising notably, comparative EV/EBITDA multiples are becoming more relevant. While the group is still trading at a premium for the current year of 52%, the expected step up in EBITDA margin pushes this to near parity for FY21e.

Exhibit 3: Peer valuations

Price

in reporting

currency

Market

cap (m)

Perf ytd

(%)

EV/sales (x)

EV/EBITDA (x)

P/E (x)

FY0

FY1

FY2

FY0

FY1

FY2

FY0

FY1

FY2

Euromoney (£)

792

857

-39

2.3

2.8

2.4

8.4

15.1

10.4

10.2

21.3

13.8

Thomson Reuters (US$)

75.61

49,437

7

6.8

6.8

6.5

27.0

21.2

20.0

58.6

41.5

38.1

Envestnet (US$)

80.24

4,315

14

5.3

4.9

4.4

24.9

21.6

19.1

37.3

34.6

30.7

Swissquote Group (€)

81.7

1,252

68

20.9

16.8

15.7

27.2

15.4

14.9

Globaldata (£)

1,690.0

1,976

31

11.7

11.6

11.0

46.7

39.1

35.4

58.5

59.2

52.6

MSCI (US$)

366.2

30,628

42

20.9

19.4

17.7

38.3

34.5

31.0

56.9

50.6

44.8

S&P Global (US$)

360.1

86,789

32

13.5

12.6

12.2

26.3

23.4

22.6

37.8

32.8

31.2

Marketaxess Holding (US$)

499

18,949

32

36.3

27.5

25.4

66.8

46.6

43.3

92.4

66.0

62.9

Average

23

14.7

12.8

11.9

34.0

28.8

26.0

47.4

40.2

36.1

Median

32

12.6

12.1

11.6

27.0

23.4

22.6

47.4

38.1

34.7

EQS (€)

110.0

157

71

4.7

4.5

3.8

65.1

35.5

23.2

N/A

N/A

66.9

(Premium)/discount to peer group median

63%

63%

67%

-141%

-52%

-3%

N/A

N/A

-93%

Source: Refinitiv, priced at 19 August 2020


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Schumannstrasse 34b

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Germany

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United Kingdom

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1,185 Avenue of the Americas

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United States of America

Sydney +61 (0)2 8249 8342

Level 4, Office 1205

95 Pitt Street, Sydney

NSW 2000, Australia

Frankfurt +49 (0)69 78 8076 960

Schumannstrasse 34b

60325 Frankfurt

Germany

London +44 (0)20 3077 5700

280 High Holborn

London, WC1V 7EE

United Kingdom

New York +1 646 653 7026

1,185 Avenue of the Americas

3rd Floor, New York, NY 10036

United States of America

Sydney +61 (0)2 8249 8342

Level 4, Office 1205

95 Pitt Street, Sydney

NSW 2000, Australia

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