Last close As at 05/08/2026
EUR7.56
▲ 2.33 (44.59%)
Market capitalisation
EUR486m
Research: TMT
Northern Data Group demonstrated progress made in Q124 alongside a capital markets day update, as it takes further steps in becoming a diversified high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure solutions provider. It expects to deploy 20,000 NVIDIA H100 graphic processing units in FY24, cementing its position as Europe’s foremost AI hardware cluster. Key to this, 85% of its H100 capacity has already been sold. Management’s ambitious guidance is unchanged, expecting revenue of €200–240m in FY24 and €520–570m in FY25, with adjusted EBITDA growing from €50–80m in FY24 to €300–350m in FY25. The step-up in profitability in FY25 reflects the first year of full contribution from the company’s Ardent Data Centers, coinciding with peak H100 efficiency. Having moved away from being a pure-play cryptocurrency miner, Northern Data’s revenue profile is more predictable, stable and diversified. The group is fully capitalised and, with a clear capex plan that is front-end loaded, we believe its profitability profile should continue to improve.
Written by
Northern Data Group |
Continued progress as a diversified HPC provider |
Capital markets day and Q124 update |
Tech hardware and equipment |
8 May 2024 |
Share price performance
Business description
Analysts
Northern Data Group is a research client of Edison Investment Research Limited |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Northern Data Group demonstrated progress made in Q124 alongside a capital markets day update, as it takes further steps in becoming a diversified high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure solutions provider. It expects to deploy 20,000 NVIDIA H100 graphic processing units in FY24, cementing its position as Europe’s foremost AI hardware cluster. Key to this, 85% of its H100 capacity has already been sold. Management’s ambitious guidance is unchanged, expecting revenue of €200–240m in FY24 and €520–570m in FY25, with adjusted EBITDA growing from €50–80m in FY24 to €300–350m in FY25. The step-up in profitability in FY25 reflects the first year of full contribution from the company’s Ardent Data Centers, coinciding with peak H100 efficiency. Having moved away from being a pure-play cryptocurrency miner, Northern Data’s revenue profile is more predictable, stable and diversified. The group is fully capitalised and, with a clear capex plan that is front-end loaded, we believe its profitability profile should continue to improve.
Year end |
Revenue (€m) |
Adjusted |
PBT* |
EPS* |
P/sales |
P/E |
12/20 |
16.4 |
(12.3) |
(83.0) |
(7.3) |
84.9 |
N/A |
12/21 |
189.9 |
89.6 |
342.1 |
13.2 |
7.3 |
2.0 |
12/22 |
193.3 |
42.4 |
(251.6) |
(10.6) |
7.2 |
N/A |
Note: *PBT and EPS are normalised, excluding amortisation of acquired intangibles, exceptional items and share-based payments.
Unaudited Q124 revenue was c €29m, made up of €21.7m from Peak Mining and c €7m the Taiga Cloud division. Peak Mining remains a highly profitable segment within Northern Data’s portfolio, and as per our initiation, is a division in which the group continues to invest. Following the bitcoin halving in mid-April 2024, the number of block rewards of bitcoin per day reduces from 900 to 450. Consequently, Q2 revenue is expected to reduce before increasing in Q3 and subsequently reach its highest level in Q4 as Northern Data invests in its exahash rate. Looking at FY24, Northern Data expects to achieve an EBITDA margin range of 30–40%.
Northern Data announced that it was one of 11 sovereign AI clouds to be selected to provide NVIDIA’s latest GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchips, highlighting its strong commercial relationship with NVIDIA. The GB200s improve performance by up to 30x compared with the current H100s, while reducing energy consumption and costs by 25x. GB200 chips will be in production testing from Q324.
Northern Data recently announced progress made on the upgrade of Ardent Data Centers’ Pittsburgh data centre site, which was acquired in January 2024. This 41,000 sq ft building is being retrofitted with the latest liquid cooling technology to maximise energy efficiency and power output. Energy capacity should increase from 5MW to 20MW, while its strategic location on the Eastern Seaboard enables it to provide latency of less than 10 milliseconds to a key area in the US.
Having secured a €575m debt facility in FY23 to invest in its HPC strategy, Northern Data expects FY24 capex in the range of €800–900m for hardware and infrastructure. Consequently, it expects to end FY24 with a net cash position of €100–200m. FY23 results are expected by the end of June.
|
|
Research: Healthcare
Oryzon’s Q124 results emphasised the company’s focus on advancing and expanding its CNS and oncology pipelines, driven by its core assets, vafidemstat and iadademstat. Operating performance was in line, with the lower opex (37% y-o-y decline to €3.2m) driven by reduced R&D spending following completion of the Phase IIb PORTICO trial. Notwithstanding the mixed PORTICO results in borderline personality disorder (BPD), we expect clinical activity to pick up in the coming months, with the initiation of the iadademstat combination studies in first-line AML (Phase Ib) and SCLC (Phase Ib/II) in Q224, and the planned end of Phase II (EoP2) meeting with the FDA in BPD. We also expect interim readouts from the Phase Ib FRIDA study in advanced AML (to be presented at the European Hematology Association conference in June this year). We keep our assumptions broadly unchanged and incorporate the latest net debt figure (€3.7m at end-Q124) in our estimates. Our valuation adjusts to €12.1/share.