Wrote an article about Siteminder for arichlife. Would love to have another strawman meeting with CEO.

https://arichlife.com.au/an-introduction-to-siteminder-asx-sdr/

The Good

• Increase in positive operating cash flow to $4.9m for the quarter. FCF is still not quite positive due to investing cash outflows of $5.3m. Siteminder is trending well to meet their FCF target by the end of FY24.

• Operating expenses remain flat, so going forward, most of the top line growth should be going to the bottom line.

• $39.5m in cash available as the business reaches FCF positive. Cash balance should improve going forward offering a solid operational buffer for future R&D spend.
• 14 agreements signed on for Channel Plus which indicates there is a demand for the new product. Currently this is running in pilot for Q4FY24 so unlikely there will be any significant contribution from Channels Plus until H2FY25.

The Not So Good

• ARR is up YoY and the previous quarter but still down on Q1. It’s a similar story with quarterly revenue, which has been largely flat for FY24 and still down on Q1. For the company to be close to the targeted growth rate of 30% much of this will need to come over the next 2 quarters.

What To Watch

• Channel Plus and Dynamic Revenue Plus release as per target in Q1FY25
• Siteminder Pay Terminals rollout in H1FY23
• Updates on Little Hotelier Autopay and contributions to increase in transaction revenue.

Watch Status

• Unchanged. Slower growth QoQ but business developing opportunities for FY25 and beyond.

Valuation Status

• No Change

Board

Inside Ownership                   Ordinary Shares    %SDR Issued          Net Value at $5.40

Pat O’Sullivan                          65,976                         0.02%              $356K

Sankar Narayan                      7,147,691                    2.58%              $38.598m

Jenny Macdonald                    54,525                         0.02%              $294K

Paul Wilson                             16,760,807                  6.05%              $90.508m

Les Szekely                              15,549,072                  5.61%              $83.965m

Kim Anderson                         24,500                         0.01%              $132K

Dean A. Stoecker                    20,000                         0.01%              $108K

Total                                        39,622,571                  14.3%              $213.962m 

Recent Board Buying

Kim Anderson

·      28 November 2023

5,000 shares at $4.58 ($22,949.81)

·      2 November 2023

4,500 shares at $4.265 ($19,192.50)

Board Bios

Pat O’Sullivan - Independent, Non-Executive Chairman

Pat was appointed independent non-executive Chairman of the Company in October 2021.

Pat has extensive experience as a Director of both listed and unlisted entities. Pat is currently the non-executive Chair of both carsales.com Limited (ASX:CAR) and TechnologyOne. He was previously a non-executive Director of APN Outdoor (ASX: APO), iSentia (ASX:ISD), Marley Spoon (ASX:MMM), iSelect (ASX:ISU) and iiNet (ASX: IIN). 

Pat has over 30 years’ commercial and business management experience, including holding various senior financial and operational roles in Ireland, the US, Australia and New Zealand across a number of industries including traditional and online media, telecommunications, fast moving consumer goods and professional accounting. He was the Chief Financial Officer of Optus from 2001 to 2006 and was the Chief Operating Officer and Finance Director of Nine Entertainment Co Pty Limited from 2006 until 2012.

Pat is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland and Australia. He is a graduate of the Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.

Sankar Narayan -Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director

For more than 20 years, Sankar Narayan has delivered change management, operational rigour and business growth across the travel, technology, media and telecommunications sectors, with particular expertise in company transformations and business strategy to achieve strong shareholder outcomes. Following several senior management roles at ​Virgin Australia, ​Fairfax Media and Foxtel, and having also worked at Vodafone Australia, Boston Consulting Group and Schlumberger prior, in 2015 Sankar joined Xero where he went on to serve in the dual capacity of Chief Operating and Financial Officer.

Today, Sankar leads SiteMinder’s internationalised software and multilingual teams across 20 locations globally, and which see more than 80% of revenue sourced from outside the company’s home market of Australasia.

Sankar holds a Masters in Business Administration with Honours from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago and a Masters in Electrical Engineering from the State University of New York. He is a Certified Practising Accountant and a Fellow of CPA (Australia), and has been a regular contributor to Forbes.com on the crucial topics of strategy, disruption and managing high growth businesses.

Jenny Macdonald - Non-Executive Director, Audit and Risk Committee Chair

Jenny was appointed as an independent non-executive Director of the Company in October 2021.

Jenny has a background in financial and general management roles across a range of industry sectors including fast moving consumer goods, resources, travel and digital media. She has a proven track record in developing and implementing strategy with a focus on risk management, growth and value creation. Jenny was previously Chief Financial Officer and Interim Chief Executive Officer at Helloworld Travel and Chief Financial Officer and General Manager International at REA Group.

Jenny is currently non-executive director of Redbubble (ASX:RBL) and Australian Pharmaceutical Industries (ASX:API), and is Chair of Healius Limited (ASX:HLS).

Jenny is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants ANZ, has a Masters of Entrepreneurship and Innovation from Swinburne University and is Graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Paul Wilson - Non-Executive Director

Paul was appointed a non-executive director of the Company in 2012. Paul held the role of SiteMinder Chair from 2012 to 2018, and was previously Chair of the People and Culture Committee. He is a member of the Audit and Risk Committee.

Paul is a co-founder and Managing Partner of ASX-listed Bailador Technology Investments (ASX:BTI) (which is a substantial shareholder of SiteMinder). Paul’s business background includes positions with leading Australian private equity house CHAMP Private Equity in Sydney and New York, with MetLife in London, media and technology focussed investment group, Illyria and with Ernst & Young.

Paul’s other non-executive director roles include ASX-listed Vita Group (ASX:VTG) and Straker Translations (ASX:STG), as well as private companies InstantScripts and the Rajasthan Royals IPL cricket franchise.

Paul has a Bachelor of Business, from Queensland University of Technology and is a Fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australia, a Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Australia and a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Les Szekely - Non-Executive Director

Les was appointed a non-executive director of the Company in 2012. He was the first angel investor in SiteMinder.

Les was a tax consulting partner with Horwaths Chartered Accountants for 20 years, until the company merged with Deloitte, when he became a Director of Taxation in Deloitte Growth Solutions.

Since leaving Deloitte in 2008, Les has dedicated his time to angel and venture capital investing. He is the Chairman of Grand Prix Capital, Equity Venture Partners and Microequities Asset Management Group Limited (ASX: MAM). These businesses are engaged in venture investment at the angel, venture capital and early listed stages, respectively. Les is also is a director of several venture backed growth companies.

Les holds a Bachelor of Law and Arts from the University of New South Wales, a Master of Laws from the University of Sydney.

Kim Anderson -Non-executive Director, People & Culture Chair

Kim was appointed a non-executive director of the company in April 2022. She is the Chair of the People and Culture Committee. 

Kim brings more than 30 years’ board and executive expertise to SiteMinder from a range of media and e-commerce companies. Kim is the former CEO and founder of Reading Room Inc (bookstr.com), CEO of Southern Star Entertainment, and has held senior executive positions at PBL and Ninemsn. 

She is currently a non-executive director of Carsales (ASX:CAR), Marley Spoon AG (ASX:MMM), Invocare Ltd (ASX:IVC) and Infomedia (ASX:IFM). She serves as Chair of the Remuneration, People and Culture Committee on all her boards.

Dean A. Stoecker - Non-Executive Director

Dean Stoecker is an American entrepreneur and businessman, who co-founded software giant Alteryx (NYSE:AYX) in 1997, a company specialising in automating analytics, which today plays a key role in making data-driven tools accessible at all levels of the world’s leading organisations. 

Currently Alteryx’s Executive Chairman, Dean was previously the company’s Chief Executive Officer. Prior to this, Dean was Director-Enterprise Solutions at Integration Technologies, Principal at Donnelley Marketing Information Services and Vice President of Sales at Strategic Mapping. 

Dean holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado, and a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from Pepperdine University. He lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Following the post on SDR's 1HFY24 results earlier, here is the summary of the SDR 3QFY24 Appendix 4C. More of the same from 1HFY24 ...

Very excited with progress on the 2 new capabilities currently in pilot release ahead of 1QFY25 release as this will propel SDR's next phase of growth, in parallel to the ongoing growth in the current base products.

Discl: Held IRL and in SM

KEY POINTS FROM THE ANNOUNCEMENT

• Revenue increase driven by SDR’s metasearch offering, Demand Plus, driven by accelerated adoption and strong booking activity
• Net subscriber addition momentum continued from 1HFY24, focused on larger properties (vs the target market of small, independent hotels)
• Continued improvement in FCF - underlying FCF was ($0.2m), now only (0.4% of revenue) - accelerating throughout FY24 thus far - continuing benefits of sustained strong organic growth and operating leverage
• Liquidity remains strong at $72.2m
• No change to FY24 guidance - (1) organic revenue growth of 30% in medium term (2) underlying EBITDA profitable in 2HFY24 (3) underlying FCF positive in 2HFY2024.
• On track for mid-CY2024 release of 2 Smart Platform products
• Channels Plus:
• Signed up Trip.com Group to participate in the Channels Plus Program
• Channel Plus continues to gain traction - 14 distribution partners have signed up
• Channel Plus pilot commenced 29 April 2024, limited to 1,000 hotels, has drawn strong registered expression of interest from existing customers
• Dynamic Revenue Plus:
• Mobile App launched in March well received by users

Belatedly worked through SDR's 1HFY24 results and last week's 3QFY24 Appendix 4C after leaving it aside for about 6M.

The FY2024 slides is an easy read and tells the story very clearly SDR 1HFY24 Preso

Added notes taken during the 1HFY2024 call and a summary of the P&L and KPI's across the halfs, so that I can more clearly see the trend across half's rather than pcp.

SUMMARY

• This is a company that is firing on all cyclinders today, with new capabilities in pilot release now, which will drive the next wave of growth from FY2025
• Positive momentum and operational KPI’s all steadily trending in the right direction and improved on the pre-Covid 2019 trajectory - subscriber growth, across all regions
• Scale and leverage is clearly showing as revenue grows - unit economics continue to improve, LTV/CAC continues to grow, Sales and Product Development expense as a % of revenue continues to fall
• Underlying cash flow positive in 1HFY24 - on track to target of cashflow positive in 2HFY24
• Driving industry change via Smart Platform - the integration of Distribution, Intelligence and Revenue Optimisation, as the hotel industry is far behind airlines in yield management
• Smart Platform will provide the next step increase in SDR’s growth - good progress made in 1st 2 capabilities of Demand Plus and Channels Plus - due for release in 2HFY2024, will full impact to be felt in FY2025 - increases the moat
• Smart Platform will also see more transactional monetising opportunity for SDR by taking a clip of the gross booking value that goes through the SDR platform
• SDR is rapidly growing its base market with a huge TAM to go and in parallel, rapidly building new capabilities that will drive improvements in hotelier revenue via improvements in yield management

KEY POINTS FROM 1HFY24 INVESTOR CALL

• Comparison CY2023 against Pre-Covid CY2019 a better indication of performance as CY2022 was Covid-distorted - unable to sustain acceleration rates when compared to a distorted 2022, but underlying growth from CY2019 is ongoing
• APAC and Aust - higher growth pace, expect Asia to grow scale
• Subscription growth momentum - good pipeline and additions in 2M in CY2024, no slowdown
• Transactions held up better than most majors:
• GDS - big beneficiary of return of leisure travel post Covid
• Pay - on par with average growth rates
• Demand Plus - strong ability to drive activity and share of Gross Booking Value - strong in Jan/Feb
• LTV/CAC is 5.3x - higher than pre-Covid, LTV has expanded and CAC continues to moderate
• Channel Plus Partners - signed on Agoda and Hopper
• Agoda is either top 5th or 6th of global channels, strong in Asia and is very big
• Channels Plus takes away friction from inventory management
• Both sides have monetising opportunity - SDR, Hotels, Online Travel Agent
• SDR is one of the largest supplier of inventory to the majors
• Channels Plus creates new distribution channels, is not part of Demand Plus - complementary, not cannabilistic
• Channels Plus - hotel has 1 pipe which opens many distribution channels - removes inventory management friction
• Pilot in mid-CY24, impact will be seen in FY2025
• Revenue growth is driving leverage and scale
• Positive Underlying Cash Flow in Q1 and Q2
• Not looking at M&A

Discl: Held IRL and in SM

As @PeregrineCapital pointed out, BTI's February Update is all about SiteMinder, which is their largest holding in the portfolio. BTI are still quite bullish given the significant portion it makes up of their NTA and for me, any sell downs from the BTI team would be worth paying attention to. (Even though they probably should to move capital into other unlisted ventures).

The update breaks down Short, Medium and Long term prospects for the company, but implies there is value at current levels.

I'm yet to do my review of Q2/H1 but will revisit this when I do.

• SVB collapse

The ASX companies exposed to the SVB crisis

Life360 and SiteMinder are among the locally listed companies to have banked with failed VC lender Silicon Valley Bank.

some local fall out

I’ve also been watching SiteMinder. This observation is a bit from left field, but it may have an impact on SDR in the short/med term.

Within 2 days, I heard 2 podcast references to hotels operating at low capacity, due to lack of staff availability and the subsequent flow on of price increases for accommodation to ensure operators are profitable.

My initial thought is that this is a headwind for SDR as there are less rooms to clip the ticket on.  Alternatively, it could be a positive as operators need to ensure they fill rooms to a predetermined capacity to make a profit/break even. I don’t have a strong view either way, just another data point to consider.

Sources below:

Ref 1: “Imagine that China moves away from zero COVID. I'm not saying they will, I'm saying imagine, then all of a sudden, the demand for all sorts of basic materials, the demand for luxury goods. I'll give you just an example. I just went around Europe visiting clients and the hotel rooms that used to cost me 200 euros now costs 400 euros, and you can't get room service at night because they don't have enough staff anymore. What happens when the Chinese tourists come back? That probably goes from 400 euros to 600 euros.”

Excerpt from podcast, (my emphasis in bold) Louis-Vincent Gave: The Xi Pivot vs. The Powell Pivot October 20th, 2022

https://macrovoices.podbean.com/e/macrovoices-346-louis-vincent-gave-the-xi-pivot-vs-the-powell-pivot/

Ref 2: On The Call yesterday, Adam and Jun Bei discuss business travel, with hotels running low occupancy due to staffing issues and increasing prices to compensate. They note that business travel is strong but expect it to taper going forward re the higher costs to travel.  

https://www.ausbiz.com.au/media/the-call-friday-21-october-?videoId=24901

Adam Dawes & Jun Bei Liu At 20.30

As a side note, the macrovoices podcast is interesting. It refers to a potential Xi pivot.  That is, when China loosens covid restrictions, there may be a “flood” of liquidity that will be released from pent up Chinese demand.

Hope you found the discussion with Sankar Narayan valuable.

He struck me as a straight shooter with a clear focus on what matters, and as someone who is thinking years into the future.

You can catch the recording on the Meetings page, but a few things that stood out for me:

• There's a very large market opportunity, with 1 million small to medium hotel chains globally (ex China)
• They are the largest player and 3x the size of their nearest competitor
• Sankar is wary of acquisitions and mainly focused on organic growth
• They have a LTV/CAC of 3-4, which allows for very attractive unit economics and helps explain the investment expenditure. This is exactly what happened at Xero when he was the CFO, and it builds a very attractive cash flow stream as the business scales.
• Macro conditions are uncertain, but he's not focused on predicting it. They have however done a lot of scenario analysis and have thought through a wide variety of possibilities. All that being said, if Covid couldnt knock them over, it's hard to see how an economic slowdown could be any worse. Moreover, the re-opening dynamics are more likely the dominant factor over any macro headwinds.
• They are cash flow negative by choice and well supported by a very strong balance sheet. That is, as with covid, they can easily pull back on Capex and remain viable if needed.
• New modules, recently released, provide significant upsell potential. 32% of customers use only one product.
• They have some serious investors aside from Bailador, including Blackrock.

All told, it looks to me like a well run business that has not only survived a near existential threat, but emerged far stronger on the other side. Management is capable, aligned and thinking long term. The business is very sticky, and should scale well as revenues grow, and is unlikely to need any outside capital for the foreseeable future.

All that being said, despite the drop in the share price, shares are still on something like 10x ARR. Yes, it's growing well with attractive economics, but it feels like a lot in the current market.