Ori­gi­nal-Re­se­arch: Ave­mio AG – from GBC AG­Clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on of GBC AG to Ave­mio AG

Com­pa­ny Name: Ave­mio AG
ISIN: DE000A2LQ1P6

Re­ason for the re­se­arch: Re­se­arch Re­port (Anno)
Re­com­men­da­ti­on: BUY
Tar­get pri­ce: 23,00 EUR
Tar­get pri­ce on sight of: 31.12.2025
Last ra­ting ch­an­ge:
Ana­lyst: Cos­min Fil­ker; Ni­klas Ripp­lin­ger

- Trans­for­ma­ti­on into a me­dia tech­no­lo­gy group is be­ing dri­ven for­ward
– Im­pro­ve­ment in pro­fit mar­gins ex­pec­ted

With the pre­sen­ta­ti­on of the con­so­li­da­ted fi­gu­res for the first time, Ave­mio AG re­por­ted sa­les of € 99.15 mil­li­on for the past fi­nan­cial year 2023. Alt­hough no com­pa­ra­ti­ve fi­gu­res are available for the 2022 fi­nan­cial year, the pro for­ma fi­gu­res we have cal­cu­la­ted (re­ve­nue ac­cor­ding to GBC cal­cu­la­ti­on: € 108.70 mil­li­on) in­di­ca­te a down­ward busi­ness trend. The com­pa­ny had ori­gi­nal­ly as­su­med sa­les of € 120 mil­li­on for the past fi­nan­cial year.

The lower-than-ex­pec­ted sa­les trend is due in par­ti­cu­lar to wea­k­er de­mand in the se­cond half of the year, re­flec­ting the low pro­pen­si­ty to in­vest as a re­sult of the eco­no­mic si­tua­ti­on. Over­all, de­mand was lower, par­ti­cu­lar­ly for hig­her-pri­ced equip­ment and on the con­su­mer side. This was exa­cer­ba­ted by a lack of in­no­va­ti­on and the­r­e­fo­re a lack of in­cen­ti­ves to buy. Fi­nal­ly, the high le­vel of in­vest­ment du­ring the co­ro­na­vi­rus pan­de­mic led to pull-for­ward ef­fects.

As ex­pec­ted, EBITDA was also be­low ex­pec­ta­ti­ons at € ‑0.05 mil­li­on (pre­vious year ac­cor­ding to GBC cal­cu­la­ti­on: € 4.44 mil­li­on) (Ave­mio gui­dance: € 5 mil­li­on). While the gross pro­fit mar­gin re­main­ed sta­ble, ope­ra­ting ex­pen­ses rose dis­pro­por­tio­na­te­ly to gross pro­fit. Among other things, this is due to the ex­pan­si­on of per­son­nel ca­pa­ci­ties and in­creased pro­duct de­ve­lo­p­ment cos­ts for the Ave­mio com­pa­nies fo­cus­sing on di­gi­tal ser­vices. Lower than ex­pec­ted sa­les from the­se start-ups were also ac­com­pa­nied by a lack of ear­nings con­tri­bu­ti­ons.

Ac­cor­ding to the company’s gui­dance, sa­les growth of bet­ween 1% and 4% is to be achie­ved in the cur­rent 2024 fi­nan­cial year. EBIT (2023: € ‑2.61 mil­li­on) is ex­pec­ted to in­crease dis­pro­por­tio­na­te­ly to break-even le­vel. While sa­les in the re­tail busi­ness are ex­pec­ted to de­cli­ne by 2% due to the on­go­ing re­luc­tance to in­vest, sa­les in the me­dia tech­no­lo­gy seg­ment are ex­pec­ted to in­crease. The ex­pan­si­on of the me­dia tech­no­lo­gy seg­ment is in any case an im­portant pil­lar of the cor­po­ra­te stra­tegy, which aims to im­pro­ve cus­to­mer loyal­ty on the one hand and in­crease the qua­li­ty of ear­nings on the other. This stra­te­gic com­po­nent is very well re­pre­sen­ted by the ac­qui­si­ti­on of Moo­vIT GmbH, with which the pro­duct ran­ge was ex­pan­ded to in­clude the are­as of sys­tem in­te­gra­ti­on and soft­ware de­ve­lo­p­ment as well as con­sul­ting ser­vices for the op­ti­mi­sa­ti­on and au­to­ma­ti­on of vi­deo work­flows. Ho­we­ver, in-house de­ve­lo­p­ments dri­ven by ma­jo­ri­ty-ow­ned start-ups will also con­tri­bu­te to the plan­ned ch­an­ge.

For the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year, we ex­pect sa­les re­ve­nue of € 101.14 mil­li­on (sa­les growth: 2.0%) and also as­su­me con­stant sa­les growth of 7.0% p.a. for the co­ming fi­nan­cial ye­ars (2025 and 2026). The full-year in­clu­si­on of the me­dia tech­no­lo­gy sub­si­dia­ry Moo­vIT and the mar­ke­ting of the di­gi­tal pro­ducts de­ve­lo­ped by Ave­mio AG should lead to an im­pro­ve­ment in the pro­fit mar­gin. In ad­di­ti­on, Ave­mio AG has im­ple­men­ted cost-cut­ting me­a­su­res that should take full ef­fect from 2025 in par­ti­cu­lar. We ex­pect the EBIT mar­gin to im­pro­ve to 6.1% by 2026.

We have de­ter­mi­ned a new pri­ce tar­get of € 23.00, which cor­re­sponds to a re­duc­tion of the pre­vious pri­ce tar­get of € 32.00. The lower pri­ce tar­get re­sults from the re­du­ced fo­re­casts for the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year 2024, which have led to a re­duc­tion in the esti­ma­tes for the co­ming fi­nan­cial ye­ars. We have also re­du­ced our long-term tar­get EBITDA mar­gin ex­pec­ta­ti­on to 10.0% (pre­vious­ly: 11.6%). We con­ti­nue to as­sign a BUY ra­ting.

You can down­load the re­se­arch here:
http://​www​.more​-ir​.de/​d​/​3​0​2​1​3​.​pdf

Cont­act for ques­ti­ons
GBC AG
Hal­der­stra­ße 27
86150 Augs­burg
⁰⁸²¹⁄₂₄₁₁₃₃ 0
research@​gbc-​ag.​de
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Dis­clo­sure of po­ten­ti­al con­flicts of in­te­rest pur­su­ant to Sec­tion 85 WpHG and Art. 20 MAR The com­pa­ny ana­ly­sed abo­ve has the fol­lo­wing po­ten­ti­al con­flict of in­te­rest: (5a,11); A ca­ta­lo­gue of po­ten­ti­al con­flicts of in­te­rest can be found at
https://​www​.gbc​-ag​.de/​d​e​/​O​f​f​e​n​l​e​g​ung
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Date and time of com­ple­ti­on of the stu­dy: 15.07.2024 (08:39 am)
Date and time of pu­bli­ca­ti­on of the stu­dy: 15.07.2024 (10:00 am)

——————-trans­mit­ted by EQS Group AG.——————-

The is­suer is so­le­ly re­spon­si­ble for the con­tent of this re­se­arch.
The re­sult of this re­se­arch does not con­sti­tu­te in­vest­ment ad­vice
or an in­vi­ta­ti­on to con­clude cer­tain stock ex­ch­an­ge tran­sac­tions.