Globe & Mail Globe says Lightspeed Commerce maintained at "buy"
2023-04-24 07:15 ET - In the News
The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that National Bank analysts Richard Tse and John Shao see the potential for slowing momentum in the Canadian technology sector entering the earnings season after a strong start to 2023. The Globe's David Leeder writes that Mr. Tse and Mr. Shao rate Lightspeed Commerce "outperform." They cut their share target back by $10 to $20 (all figures U.S.). Analysts on average target the shares at $27.21. The analysts say in a note: "Given a recent shift in strategy to target 'higher value' merchants (i.e., more than $500k in annual GTV [gross transaction value]) care of the improved unit economics associated with the group, the company is refining its target market. For reference, those merchants (higher value) have 2.5x 4.5 times greater ARPU [average revenue per user] than smaller merchants (those with less than $200k in annual GTV) and represent 63 per cent of total GTV despite only representing 15 per cent of the total market. Beyond that shift (in strategy), on January 17, 2023, Lightspeed announced the elimination of 10 per cent of headcount-related operating expenditures (300 employees) with half of those cost reductions coming from management layers."