D4t4 Solutions Share Discussion Threads

[amt] 22/10/2020 08:54

Boozey. I think you must be looking at a different company. D4t4 was 70p 5 years ago at an average price, now its 2 quid. It was 10p in 2002. If that's sideways movement then your expectation is much higher than mine. You could say that about the ft index over the last 20 years but not D4T4

[boozey] 21/10/2020 21:57

Have been in this stock with a small holding in the bottom drawer since the ISL dinosaur era. It once went past £12 in the dotcom boom I recall, but otherwise has gone more or less sideways for the past 20 years. So not a stock to hold for capital growth, nor indeed for a good dividend yield. It has been managed like a lifestyle business rather than one that is progressive and driving shareholder value. But we are where we are. D4T4 was founded by Lythall and Kear in the early 1980s. They came from a car distribution background at Lex Service (taken over by the RAC in the late 1990s from memory). But they are 72 and 65 respectively, and lack real drive. So given their age and the fact that D4T4 has some fantastic capability (with new enhancements), I wonder if they are considering an exit strategy. Given history this is probably a better reason to hold for realising shareholder value than growth prospects which in themselves, and as debated on this excellent thread today, are unlikely to set the world alight especially given the track record.

[rp19] 21/10/2020 18:52

Snippets from the fincap note - "Of the £16.6m required in H2 to hit FY expectations and match FY 2020, we calculate c.£8m is already secured leaving less than £9m needed from new business and a substantial tranche of this is in negotiation, with contracts to be signed in Q3... Sales of £16.6m in H2 2021 would see a H1/H2 split of 23/77, very similar to the 24/76 delivered in meeting FY 2018 forecasts". Will be looking out for new contract RNS' over the next few months to meet what looks like a tall order. I hold, like the company and the area they operate in, particularly with winning business in new sectors (large addressable market). However, I think in the short term there is likely be an opportunity to buy cheaper.

[energeticbacker] 21/10/2020 16:21

According to Investor's Champion yhe growth potential of D4T4 seems considerable as it expands around the world adding new technology and service partners. Their updated research highlights the appeal.

[geraldus] 21/10/2020 16:07

If their solution is as good as they say I am surprised there is nobody sniffing around.Companies in this sector being bought on high valuations.

[valhamos] 21/10/2020 13:14

Agreed - value of perpetual contracts going back a few years would be very useful and help clear up a lot of uncertainty.

[mauricemonkey] 21/10/2020 13:06

Agreed, the reporting here is causing all kinds of confusions and misunderstandings. We really need to know the run rates of the perpetual contracts over the last 3-4 years to see what the actual growth has been. For example, really rough figures, don't shoot me. £8m H1 20. If one third of that is assumed arr, that's ~£2.64m arr but £5.3m perpetual which would, assuming a 5 year contract amortise to roughly £3.64m arr (2.64 + (5.3/5 years)). Now H1 20, we have £5.09 x 55% = £2.8m arr (6% increase) but, again assuming a 5 year contract that works to £3.2m arr (£2.8 + (2.29/5 years)) for just this year but over £4m if added to the assumed arr from H1 20 (£3.64M) which would be around 10% growth whilst missing a load of contracts that are deferring into H2. It's just so opaque and difficult to work out what's going on with two measures of revenue being used side by side.

[valhamos] 21/10/2020 12:49

"26% to 55% is more than double." Yes but you cannot conclude that recurring revenue in absolute terms has doubled if total revenue is declining. Even after selling a few earlier I have a 5% portfolio stake but what I'm interested in is growth in the business - sales and profits - and I need more evidence than was provided by this update.

[gdjs100] 21/10/2020 12:43

6gr it is worth noting that new SaaS contracts are billed annually. They are still recurring, but billed once a year, and most of them fall into H2.I agree it would be better for them to recognise this revenue in a straight line over a 12 month period to smooth the H1/H2 split.

[mauricemonkey] 21/10/2020 12:34

Thanks for explaining it very well 6gr.

[mauricemonkey] 21/10/2020 12:31

26% to 55% is more than double. Ah, the line above way my orginal statement - it is actually incorrect apologies. Leaving it in so as not to hide anything, ie my own incompetence! I misread the various figures, you're right it hasn't doubled - recurring revenues are up to 55% of total revenue from 45%. Sorry for any confusion caused.

[valhamos] 21/10/2020 12:29

I agree with your point about clarity and your comment about H2 but there isn't and never has been an issue with the accounting; the transition to an "as a service" model is driven the D4T4's partners and customers and the accounting follows the commercial reality.

[6gr] 21/10/2020 12:09

The previous accounting treatment (ie up fronting revenue) and the switch to SAAS/PAAS makes it hard to properly establish real sales growth rates. I don't think it helps how they present the figures. In an ideal world they should be transitioning to a situation where most of the revenue for all contracts is booked over the term of the contract (other than specific short-term implementation fees). They could re-state previous years figures to show what they would have looked like under that assumption. This would have the effect of properly showing growth rates, but would also show how much they effectively 'overstated' revenue by not amortising it. I'm surprised that under accounting rules they were allowed to book it all up-front and that's an 'addiction' that's very painful to get off as we are seeing. Many customers have paid entirely up-front via a perpetual licence for a system that is still being provided, but that will never show any more revenue unless they can be persuaded to upgrade to a new system. The issue of H1 vs H2 should disappear if they properly amortise the revenues, but I'm worried that they are not since they still talk about booking 65% of revenues in H2, in a SAAS business this should not happen. If they take a years payment in H1 or H2 it should be spread over the whole of the next 12 months. If they wish to properly show growth and be transparent then they need to be clear about their accounting, spread everything properly and produce some indicative re-stated past results. The story has to be about ARR and it's growth and right now I think they could do more to evidence that. I am invested heavily in several cloud-based SAAS tech businesses and I have a small holding here. My gut tells me to go for a big holding, but the evidence to support this is weak as there is not enough clarity in the figures and accounting practices to make an accurate decision.

[cockerhoop] 21/10/2020 11:00

Maurice, Recurring revenue was £3.0m in H120, £2.8m in H121 (From Finncap note). How is this a doubling?

[longhills1] 21/10/2020 10:18

Interesting 'Morning Note' from finnCap that concludes "This is an excellent opportunity for investors to pick up stock"

[mauricemonkey] 21/10/2020 10:06

Also, appears some people are confusing recurring revenues as SaaS, they're not the same thing. Celebrus can be deployed to the on-prem infrastructure or via internet, if it's located inside the customer's infrastructure, it's not SaaS it's just regular software. And if it is hosted for the customer it becomes PaaS not SaaS.

[zeus19] 21/10/2020 10:02

Totally agree Mauricemonkey, I've seen them delivery on H2 weightings numerous times.

[mauricemonkey] 21/10/2020 10:00

Plenty of doom and gloom this morning. D4T4 have, at least twice I can remember, put a second half weighting on revenues before and both times they came through and delivered the full year forecast. I fail to reconcile "there's no growth" with the doubling a recurring revenue, the contract pipeline and the integration into 3rd party solutions. I hold a 5% portfolio position long term - I recently traded this from 180 to make a quick 10% (sold too early but profit in the bank is good). I'll happily be reinvesting that should this go back to 180. Looking good here for the mid term imo.

[valhamos] 21/10/2020 09:10

I think it's fair to say there isn't any underlying growth at the moment; I assume the "current environment" referred to is Covid. Disappointing update made worse by lack of clarity - what can "management expectations" mean in the context of the information vacuum of the transition from perpetual to recurring licence? One bright note was the contract wins with a South American retailer and a US healthcare customer. I have said before that D4T4 do not want to be seen to be tied too closely to the financial sector; the growth of CDP is widespread across a number of sectors and Celebrus needs to be seen as challenging its competitors in all segments not just banks and insurance. However because of the added uncertainty I have trimmed by holding this morning banking profit on shares bought in the Covid fall earlier in the year.

[adamb1978] 21/10/2020 09:04

Hi Kiskosky Thanks for those calculations - makes sense. Confirms my concerns about whether there is much growth. Recurring revenue has increased c.4% in 6 months, but a bunch (all?) of that will be revenue moving from non-recurring to recurring, rather than actual newly-won business. Lets say that half the non-recurring revenue transfers into the new model and this becomes therefore a £15m revenue business, all on a SaaS basis. Its therefore on 5x sales on that basis and even higher PE, so needs to be growing, but it doesn't feel like it is at all, more likely shrinking. I think this needs to fall back to at least 150p, more likely a bit lower, for the risk/reward balance to become interesting to me. Will keep on the radar though Adam

[kiskosky] 21/10/2020 08:48

"12 monthly recurring revenue, as a percentage of total revenue, increased to over 55%" LTM revenues as of Sep 30 are £18.00m (£21.75m FY 2020 revenues - H1 FY 2021 revenue decline of £3.75m) Of which 55% recurring implies £9.9m recurring revenues as of Sep 2020 In the annual results D4T4 stated: "Annual recurring revenue (ARR) up 26.2% to £9.55m (2019: £7.57m)" So if my calculations are correct, recurring revenue on a 12 month basis increased from £9.55m in March to £9.9m in September. Not that much of an improvement considering the massive decline in total revenues.

[adamb1978] 21/10/2020 08:28

I sold out at 219p earlier this year however have kept D4t4 on the radar. The H1 revenue figure is pretty disappointing, even allowing for covid causing contracts taking longer to close as they say. The market forecasts of £21.7m revenue seems hugely aggressive now, though I think they could get a bit closer to the 6.8p EPS market forecasts. Obviously the positive in the announcement is the ocntinued move to recurring revenue, which would generally warrant a higher multiple than the previous model. That said, they're now trading on around 4x F21 sales and something in the 30x-35x range PE multiple, depending on your view on earnings and where the price settles today. Those sort of multiples are easily justifiable IF the company manages to grow, however it really difficult to ascertain what the underlying growth (is there any?) in the top-line at the moment given that (i) the switch of business model, which natrually dampens revenue in the short/medium term and (ii) management providing zero other information to be able to deduce where there is any proper growth (e.g. info on customer numbers, ARRs, CLV etc). The problem I have with investing is that that opaque-ness could lead to large downside in teh share price if growth isn't there, which means I'll continue to sit on the sidelines. All the best for those keeping the faith!! Adam

[dave2608] 21/10/2020 08:19

I think you're right amt. Much as I think this is a fantastic company, this is a thinly traded stock. There will be enough people who just see the headline figures, selling immediately, to send this down sharply. What a rollercoaster ride this share is.

[amt] 21/10/2020 08:09

Expect a short term collapse in share price followed by recovery

[tightfist] 21/10/2020 08:01

Good to see the continuing build of recurring revenue and strategic global partnerships. Just a shame that you need to read beyond the initial numbers which are off-putting (and will remain so YoY?) to get to the good stuff.....