Bad Half, Good Year:
AVA’s trading update today focuses heavily on PCP and YOY comparatives which look good but hide a very poor Half on Half comparison. None the less they have landed very close to the forecast in my valuation and without further information on a likely sale value of the Service Division, I will leave my valuation as is for the moment but would like to shout out @Rapstar for his valuation thoughts which are quite sound. Any variance to my IV is about future growth potential which is guess work.
Update Key Points: (unable to attach announcement due to file size…)
· FY21 Sales $64.8m (+41% YOY), EBITDA ~$15.3m (+107% YOY), EBITDA Margin ~23.5% (+46% YOY), 17m cash and no debit.
· Tech Division (FFT + BQT) $24.7m (+17% YOY), but this means that Q2 revenue was $8.0m Vs Q1 revenue of $16.7m (-52.5%). $5.8m in Backlog and Delays were cited, of which if added still leaves H2 sales down 17% on H1. FY22 success will be based on the up and coming Aura-IQ system revenues which is going through proof of value programs. $50m of sales pipeline over 3 years is expected to start contributing in FY22… We will see.
· AVA Global Logistics Division (Service Division) $40.1m (+60% YOY), Q2 revenues of $21.7m Vs $18.4m in Q1 show QoQ growth of +15.7% and save the year. However this is the division that is up for sale and management incentives to sell (about 1/3 of the net proceeds) it have been extended until 30 June 2022. After management incentives and cost of sale AVA will probably realised around $30m for this division or about 1/3 of current market value.
· Cash position of 17m is an increase of 4m on the end of H1 which shows the business remains FCF positive but again H2 generated about half the FCF than H1.
The bull case remains that they get a good price for the Service Division, Aura-IQ system revenue takes off and grows strongly and they are able to replicate the IMoD licence fee revenues to some extent going forward.
The bear case is mostly that the bull assumptions don’t happen, which means AVA’s Tech Division becomes competitively week and fails to grow.
The market likes the news (+12% as I write), but an update is always welcome and AVA may have been beaten down a bit with tax loss selling… I continue to hold