Thought this was a strong 1H result with EPS up 8.7% and EPSA at $0.133 and net cash. FCF of $18.3M but looked like $19.7M (Normalizing for borrowings (net cash before acquisition). Say $20M or $40M annualised roughly.

Market obviously disappointed with the impact of powercloud on margins in the first year - short sighted assuming HSN continues their track record with integrating acquisitions and margins recover.

FY25 if we HSN gets to annualized $430M revenue and margins recover to 28% = EBITDA of $120M. Would be net cash then too i imagine again - against current market cap of ~$1B for a sticky company.

Still wish they'd stop with the partially franked dividend. Pay out the franking credits and keep the rest for acquisitions or buybacks.

Anyway happy to hold but guess have to wait 12 months before any significant rerate now. Any rate cut and imagine would look attractive. Imagine there'll be another acquisition soon enough. Always the possibility of a takeover offer too again at some point if it stays around here.

The long waited for acquisition, not as large as I was expecting would be able to pay it off rather quickly. Not much on prior earnings and seems to be mostly customers in Germany -announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20240213/pdf/060bb98h2rqkj6.pdf

Would also add there's comfort in that it's an existing vertical - will find out more tomorrow.

My bull case for HSN is after the last few years of deleveraging they are due an acquisition which I believe will be a catalyst for a rerate. I'd be surprised if there is no acquisition this year, more likely in the next few months.

While we wait HSN should generate roughly $50M in free cash flow on about a $1 billion market cap equating to around a 5%+ FCF yield. For a defensive, sticky client business i think this is reasonable especially if we get rate cuts at some point in the next 24 months.

The share price has been consolidating also recently. I do wish they'd cut the unfranked dividend and use it for buybacks or to fund the acquisition

It's not the highest quality serial acquirer as highlighted in the attributes here on page 19 - req.no/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/REQ-Deep-Dive-Acquisition-driven-Compounders-December-2023.pdf - but still decent.

Per AFR:

Listed billing software business Hansen Technologies’ managing director and heir Andrew Hansen was out shopping a $37.8 million slice in the company after market close on Tuesday.

Hansen mandated stockbroker Henslow to sell 7 million shares held by the family at $5.40 apiece or a 1.3 per cent discount to the last traded price. Bids into block trade were due 6pm, with allocations expected to be done be 6:30pm.

Street Talk understands a couple of domestic and overseas fund managers lapped up the stock. Sources said the family had tried to sell on Monday evening via another broker but failed to get it away.

It comes five days after Hansen posted a 5.2 per cent increase in operating revenue to $311.8 million for the 2023 financial year and a marginal 2.1 per cent increase in after-tax profit to $42.8 million.

The company was founded by Ken Hansen in 1971 and has been led by his son Andrew Hansen, who recently shed the CEO title but retained the managing director role.

The younger Hansen owned 17.48 per cent of the company’s shares on issue via his entity Othonna Pty Ltd before Tuesday evening’s trade. A change in substantial shareholding notice should be on its way to the ASX.