Ori­gi­nal-Re­se­arch: Vec­tron Sys­tems AG (von GBC AG): BUY

Ori­gi­nal-Re­se­arch: Vec­tron Sys­tems AG – from GBC AG­Clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on of GBC AG to Vec­tron Sys­tems AG

Com­pa­ny Name: Vec­tron Sys­tems AG
ISIN: DE000A0KEXC7

Re­ason for the re­se­arch: Re­se­arch Com­ment
Re­com­men­da­ti­on: BUY
Tar­get pri­ce: 10.00 EUR
Tar­get pri­ce on sight of: 31.12.2024
Last ra­ting ch­an­ge:
Ana­lyst: Cos­min Fil­ker, Mat­thi­as Greif­fen­ber­ger

Preli­mi­na­ry fi­gu­res for 2023: Sa­les and ear­nings de­ve­lo­p­ment in line with ex­pec­ta­ti­ons, ra­ting: BUY

Vec­tron Sys­tems AG (Vec­tron for short) pu­blished its preli­mi­na­ry fi­gu­res for the past fis­cal year 2023 on 21 Fe­bru­ary 2024. With sa­les re­ve­nue of € 37.4 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: € 25.2 mil­li­on), the com­pa­ny not only si­gni­fi­cant­ly ex­cee­ded the pre­vious year’s fi­gu­re by 48%, but also re­tur­ned to its growth path as ex­pec­ted. This fi­gu­re was in the up­per half of the sa­les gui­dance, which fo­re­cast sa­les in a ran­ge of € 36.0 mil­li­on to € 37.8 mil­li­on. Our fo­re­cast (GBC esti­ma­te: € 38.6 mil­li­on) was also al­most achie­ved.

Ac­cor­ding to our cal­cu­la­ti­ons, Vec­tron sa­les in­creased by 11% to € 28.0 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: € 25.2 mil­li­on). The main re­ason for the sa­les growth in the Vec­tron di­vi­si­on (POS sys­tems and di­gi­tal ser­vices) was the fur­ther in­crease in re­cur­ring in­co­me by 53% to € 13.2 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: € 8.6 mil­li­on), which now ac­counts for 47% (pre­vious year: 34%) of to­tal sa­les in this di­vi­si­on. This cle­ar­ly re­flects the company’s fo­cus on ex­pan­ding its di­gi­tal busi­ness in par­ti­cu­lar. Ac­cor­din­gly, Vec­tron has out­sour­ced hard­ware pro­duc­tion to ex­ter­nal part­ners. The sa­les of acard group AG (acar­do), which was ac­qui­red on 1 Ja­nu­ary 2023, also con­tri­bu­ted to the over­all in­crease in sa­les. Ac­cor­ding to our fin­dings, the in­or­ga­nic con­tri­bu­ti­on to sa­les is li­kely to have ex­cee­ded €10 mil­li­on.

Thanks to the ex­pan­si­on of the di­gi­tal busi­ness and the ear­nings con­tri­bu­ti­on of the ac­qui­red acar­do, the tur­n­around was achie­ved with EBITDA of € 3.0 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: € ‑3.9 mil­li­on). At the same time, the preli­mi­na­ry EBITDA was at the up­per end of the gui­dance rai­sed in Oc­to­ber, which had fo­re­cast EBITDA in a ran­ge of € 2.2 mil­li­on to € 3.2 mil­li­on. Our EBITDA esti­ma­te (GBC fo­re­cast: € 3.2 mil­li­on) was also al­most achie­ved. EBITDA should be cha­rac­te­ri­sed by ex­tra­or­di­na­ry in­co­me from the re­ver­sal of pro­vi­si­ons.

Even if this is a one-off ef­fect, a dis­pro­por­tio­na­te­ly high im­pro­ve­ment in ear­nings should still be achie­ved in the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year 2024. On the one hand, the ex­pan­si­on of the di­gi­tal busi­ness will be ac­com­pa­nied by hig­her mar­gins. On the other hand, the cost-cut­ting me­a­su­res in­tro­du­ced in the hard­ware area are not ex­pec­ted to take full ef­fect un­til 2024. The ex­pan­si­on of the di­gi­tal busi­ness and thus of re­cur­ring sa­les will also make the com­pa­ny less de­pen­dent on ex­ter­nal fluc­tua­tions in de­mand. Vec­tron has not yet felt any ne­ga­ti­ve ef­fects from the VAT in­crease for the ca­te­ring in­dus­try. On the con­tra­ry, di­gi­tal ser­vices are li­kely to be in grea­ter de­mand against the ack­drop of staff shorta­ges in the sec­tor.

The ac­qui­si­ti­on of acar­do should also make a si­gni­fi­cant con­tri­bu­ti­on to sa­les and ear­nings in the cur­rent 2024 fi­nan­cial year. The cou­po­ning spe­cia­list an­noun­ced the ex­pan­si­on of its cou­po­ning net­work by a fur­ther 3,500 stores at the be­gin­ning of the year, ma­king it the lar­gest check-out cou­po­ning net­work in Ger­ma­ny. Against this back­drop, Vectron’s gui­dance should re­main va­lid and we are main­tai­ning our esti­ma­tes for the fi­nan­cial ye­ars 2024 and 2025.

As part of the DCF va­lua­ti­on mo­del, we have de­ter­mi­ned a tar­get pri­ce of € 10.00 (pre­vious­ly: € 10.10). The mar­gi­nal re­duc­tion in the tar­get pri­ce is due to the in­crease in the risk-free in­te­rest rate and thus the weigh­ted cost of ca­pi­tal. On the other hand, we have rai­sed the per­pe­tu­al growth rate by 0.5% due to in­fla­ti­on, which has had the ef­fect of in­cre­asing the pri­ce tar­get. We con­ti­nue to as­sign the BUY ra­ting.

You can down­load the re­se­arch here:
http://​www​.more​-ir​.de/​d​/​2​8​9​7​7​.​pdf

Cont­act for ques­ti­ons
GBC AG
Hal­der­stra­ße 27
86150 Augs­burg
⁰⁸²¹⁄₂₄₁₁₃₃ 0
research@​gbc-​ag.​de
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Of­fen­le­gung mög­li­cher In­ter­es­sens­kon­flik­te nach § 85 WpHG und Art. 20 MAR Beim oben ana­ly­sier­ten Un­ter­neh­men ist fol­gen­der mög­li­cher In­ter­es­sen­kon­flikt ge­ge­ben: (5a,6a,7,11); Ei­nen Ka­ta­log mög­li­cher In­ter­es­sen­kon­flik­te fin­den Sie un­ter:
https://​www​.gbc​-ag​.de/​d​e​/​O​f​f​e​n​l​e​g​ung
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Date (time) com­ple­ti­on: 26.02.24 (10:15 am)
Date (time) first trans­mis­si­on: 26.02.24 (11:30 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.