Connexion announced today that they are doing an on-market buy back kicking off on the 25/10. This was approved by shareholders a few days ago at their AGM. Which should add a floor to the current SP at around 0.027.

Looks like they are intending to buy-back circa 170,628,991 shares (approx. $4.6 million a current prices). Shares on issue are 849,891,492. So this equates to about a ~20% buy-back of current shares! That's a decent purchase.

According to their most recent Quarterly, they also purchased 33.7m worth of shares between Jul - Sep 2024. Appears they have approximately $5.1m cash on hand at the end of the quarter.

I haven't viewed the meeting with them from last month, but I have been meaning to take a look, today's announcement pushes that up my priority list.

My summary from the meeting was growth and sales tractions still remains slow, while the costs of their solutions are only a tiny fraction of dealerships budgets, their solutions only help with a tiny fraction of dealerships problems and i can't imagine dealerships have much urgency to implement CXZ solutions.

I'm pretty sure I hold a small amount of CXZ in my SM portfolio but none IRL, as of the now there isn't enough growth, I like what Aaryn is doing and the valuation speaks for itself, but IMO given their lack of penetration ex GM it will take a while for their product suite to be filled out and to gain any meaningful sales traction. I think its too early to get a gauge on the returns of their investments and it will take a 1-2 years before we likely know if they are onto something. I will continue to watch closely and hopefully by the time they can gain some meaningful sales traction and momentum Mr Market hasn't caught on.

Another frank and detailed meeting with the CEO, Aaryn.

Seems calm, methodical, across the details, competent, adaptable. Investment background.

What he thinks you should understand

• how customer-concentrated they are with the Courtesy management system contract for GM dealerships and
• what they are doing to branch out -- Aaryn intends to lay out more detail at the AGM

Good background on the company. They stumbled into this and ran with it.

What are they doing to diversify customers

While keeping their eye on the ball with GM's retail incentive team, the small unit who are their current primary contacts:

1. Find other decision makers outside of that team in related areas of GM. For example employee vehicle programs. Some success.

2. Other OEM dealership networks. Not yet. This takes time, there are competitor SaaS providers and the OEMs don't all procure in the same way. Some already contract exclusively with the main competitor, some have approved supplier lists that you need to get on. Have got on lists but then figuring out the decision makers takes time.

3. Sell complimentary software direct to existing dealer base. In this way move from being a one OEM company to a 4000 dealer company.

a. The lowest hanging fruit and what we have most clarity on

b. We need to work on integrating with various DMS - dealer management software.

c. Services related to courtesy car, since that's what we're known for (Courtesy shuttle, ride hail, tollway management.)

d. Launched a marketplace in Jan. Steadily increasing sales but not a material income yet.

We're no where near getting into the DMS space but we're playing at the edges.

Competitors

• TSD Web - the incumbent, 16,000 dealerships. They have all the exclusives except GM. Can't worry about them yet.
• Dealerware - the up-and-comer. Need to stay ahead of them.

Sales force

3 US based sales, plus mgmt make regular sales trips for insight and feedback because it's not easy to keep dealers attention in their busy retail environment. Learning the reality of different dealerships across US, figuring out how to engage, in person or within the software. Data analytics. Locate the bottlenecks.

Board members

one Detroit based founder of Onstar (the GM emergency assist service), one runs a VC fund, knows startups (sounding board)

Capital allocation decisions

First: Organic growth. No dividends for a while (no tax credits due to history), buybacks as long as suitable. Conservative investment of cash to stay ahead of inflation. M&A considered, 2 investigated but ultimately passed on. Hard to find suitably sized profitable target.

Shareholder base

Previously shit, now good. (my words not his)

The potential for a bigger business is there but it would take time. The current business generates cash. They will not fluff the share price, only update when something happens.

The courtesy ride hail project

Previously announced agreement with undisclosed ride hail partner. Taking longer than they wanted. Details to iron out eg tax.

Share float: 934 million

CXZ brought back 29 million on September 3. 3% of float in one day.

DISC - HELD

Connexion reported FY results and pleasing overall.

ALL the reported numbers are in USD.

I have pasted the key elements of the report below but in summary

• Strategy outlined by Arryn found interesting, "come for the tool, stay for the network". As has been consistent Connexion are playing the long game growing and enhancing dealership usage and product offerings. This creates stickiness / high retention.
• Top line growth strong with revenue growing at 47% to $9,841,340 USD and Gross profit 78% to $7,680,585USD. It was a 200 basis point decline from 2023 but considering Connexion expense the R&D this is a plus.
• NPAT rose 7% to $1,882,127
• From a Capital allocation perspective just under 7% of shares were repurchased at a favourable purchase price.
• Balance is solid with NO debt and total current assets growing by 29.97% to $7,9120,38. Total equity also grew by 19.3% to $6,280,349.
• Long term alignment across the organisation via LTIP is a feature and is intended to assist with retention which s crucial in capturing new dealerships long term.
• Guidance was non existent for 2025 but this reflects the nature of the Connexion business which has 99% of revenue coming from General Motors dealership in the USA. The ability for Connexion to shift out of this single customer focus will be the challenge over the next 2-3 years. It also reflects the conservative style of Aaryn.
• Connexion is clearly growing well and doing so profitably.

FY 2025 Projections (my projections)

1. Revenue grow - 15% plus
2. EPS and NPAT - grow faster than revenue
3. Share repurchase to continue as opportunity presents itself.

Disc: Held on SM and RL

Connexion Mobility released Q4 results Friday 19th July.

Solid quarter to finish the year with no change to the thesis in terms of Connexion mobility being a long term buy and hold.

Difficulty in assessing CXZ is the lack of client transparency to understand the traction they are getting with dealerships or OEM but the revenue does provide a solid guide as the direction.

It is important to point out that this lack of transparency means understanding the customer concentration is not clear but something Aaryn (CEO) is seeking to reduce and something as shareholders we must keep at the back of our mind as a risk.

CXZ have and are placing a high priority when working with dealers and OEM's to build a solution that solves their problem in managing their fleet of cars and associated issues. Ultimately the uptake will be seen in revenue.

High level Results were as follows:

• 2024 FY Rev 9.8m USD v 2023 6.6m USD . 32% Higher YOY.
• Subscription revenue in Q4 was a significant driver of this growth hitting a all time high to 1.92m of. Total Q4 revenue of 2.6million.
• 

• Currently there are 46 partners as subscribers with a trial underway to have many more join the network.
• To ensure this occurs and is supported the additional 3.5 FTE during the quarter reflects the priority to develop deep relationships with dealers and OEM's.
• This is also being supported by 5% plus increase in the past quarter in costs in the areas of Sales and Marketing and Research and Development.
• With these additional costs profitability for the year remained flat to 2.63m implying a 26.8% net profit margin. Very healthy and positive.

Capital Management strength continues to shine through.

Net cash under Aaryn's leadership has grown from 2.8m in Q4 2022 to 5m in Q4 2024.

Share Buybacks similarly have been used very well to be value for shareholders.

The buyback and retiring of 153million shares since 2022 at a price range of 1c-2.74 (all below current share price of 2.8c) is solid and not something common on the ASX, especially in small cap land (see below)

Looking to the future the best results for Connexion is ahead of them.

It is pleasing to see a CEO take a long term view to build what is necessary to deliver products which are sticky and when scaled will see net profit grow to be 30% plus. How wide can this software be applied time will tell ?

Mission and Vision is clear as noted below :

Finally from a valuation standpoint CXZ @2.8c has MC of 24m AUD.

Converting the key metrics from USD to AUD @ 1.5x

Rev AUD 14.7m

Cash AUD 7.5m

Net Profit 3.9m

Disc Held RL and on SM

Connexion is an interesting little business and one that I probably would never have either, come across or looked twice at if it wasn't for this platform. @TEPCapital (not sure if he is still around) did some really good work on this a year or two ago and then we had a CEO interview last year which was informative. @wtsimis did a good summary of the recent half year results, which have continued into the recent quarterly. The stability of the earnings in this business really are impressive.

The big risk is customer concentration as they are almost entirely dependent on General Motors, and initially this was enough for me to stay clear, but having watched how this dynamic works I am less concerned about this risk, although if anything changes at GM then this would seriously impact CXZ. The GM contract will be up for renewal again next year but this is now a long standing relationship and this will be the 3rd renewal, and I think this is more of a partnership than a dependency type setup. The other reason I have less concern about this risk was the announcement in Jan 23, about how GM would now pay to have the CXZ software rolled out to all of its dealerships where as previously it was the preferred supplier this boosted ARR by US$3m. There is good detail on all this in the straws but I can't see why they would terminate the partnership if they see value in what CXZ is providing which they clearly do. A negative is that they have struggled to penetrate the non-GM dealers.

What I have been impressed with is the management team, they have very clearly articulated hoe they see the priorities of the business and how they are tracking their progress against these. Its worth checking out the quarterlies on how they are measuring return on growth spend and maintainable earnings. It is refreshing to have a CEO that spells out their metrics and holds themselves accountable to these measures. These guys aren't going to burn cash on unproductive ventures or dilute the share base. Management competency and trustworthiness gets a big tick here for me.

The interesting news recently was the launch of a new product. Given that CXZ is generally pretty conservative in the way they release things I thought this announcement was interesting. Basically they have partnered with a Global ride-share company to provide a dealer shuttle service called Connexion OnDemand. Its a pretty clever initiative to remove a cost and hassle from the dealer side and outsource the shuttle service to a third party. The details were light as it will launch next quarter, but the gist I got from listening into the quarterly call was that they are pretty excited about the potential of it.

At the current 2.9c mark I think it is valued at the status quo with minimal growth expectations. This isn't going to spit off free cash for a while as most of the earnings are being put back into the business and product development, which I think is the right decision, if you want a dividend buy a bank. The important thing for me though is that this product investment is coming from cashflow. This is a $3-3.5m NPAT business with a market cap of $26m. The secret sauce here is the competent management.

@Strawman it would be good to get Aaroyn back on for an update later this year.

Since Feb 2023 when Connexion Mobility announced its agreement with General Motors (GM) in the US and following Aaryn Nania appearance on Strawman in the same month i have been impressed with how two key areas of CXZ have evolved :

1. Culture of the organisation and
2. Capital allocation at CXZ.

I will step through why such a view has been formed.

Firstly having held Connexion Mobility from mid 2021 and having monitored the progress via (Quarterly 4C release as well as half yearly and annual results) the risk reward to the upside is more evident today than ever.

Recognising that Connexion Mobility revenue is heavily dependant on GM and due to confidentiality any investment MUST factor this into the risk.

Much of the 7,000 GM dealerships are independent and thus even though GM has an agreement with CXZ it is the dealership discretion to determine the best software. No dealership is obligated to shift to CXZ platform and can make their own decisions on which platform is most suitable in seeking to effectively manage loan car as well test drive systems.

As an investor what is appealing about this model is the incentive for CXZ to develop and show the merits of their system is their for them to show. Failure to do this well will not only led to poor uptake but ultimately loss of contract longer term.

CXZ led by Aaryn recognise this and have not only invested into product development and resources but taking a considered approach to ensure the product is meeting the needs and is of great value.

Results over the past year 2023 and expectations for 2024 and beyond

Hard to fault with positive CF , earnings and NPAT and in doing this reinvestment back into the business to drive improved sales and margins.

Back to my two original points re the Culture and Capital allocation in which CXZ have done very well.

Culture of Organisation

Over the past year CXZ have recruited in a manner which is prudent and in line with revenues rising which has ensured financially profitability is still in check but at the same time place the appropriate resources on the sales and product focus to grow the number of GM dealers whom seek to convert to the platform. This is unfolding and expect this investment to deliver meaningful lift to revenue and profitability going forward.

Second Half 2023 Management brought in metrics to align and improve the accountability of the team. The two metrics which are key to future are,

1. Diluted Maintainable Earnings Per Share or (DMEPS)
2. Return on Growth Spend (RGS)

If the previous guidance by Aaryn and the leadership team on focus on gross profit is anything to go by whereby in Q23 2022 GP was 605k and by Q2 2024 this increased to $3.83m the evolution of these two metrics provide optimism on the customer penetration that may be achieved and thus improved financial results that will flow.

Below is a extract from October 16th 2023 press release re both definitions and the link to management LTIP.

In respect to Capital Allocation i am very positive of the actions taken by Aaryn. His finance background as Co - Founder and Chief Investment officer at Lucerne Investment Partners is no doubt proving to be a real strength for the organisation. Below data speaks for itself.

• Share Count Reduction in 2023 of 45,233,733 ordinary shares or 4.7% of total share count which brings the share count down to under 900m.
• Investment into new product has been done without the need to raise monies or dilute shareholders.
• Cash on Hand of $4.3 mil
• No debt on balance sheet

From a valuation standpoint i will complete an update but support the 3.2c listed last year.

Disc : Held on SM and RL

CXZ H1 2024 Interim-Report-Highlights.pdf

CXZ Feb 9th 24 -Half-Yearly-Report-and-Accounts.pdf

CXZ GM Agreement 2023 Market-Update.pdf