TDOn the plus side, the EPS was actually a nice beat. No question that TD will reduce their current target but the question is by how much because it currently sits at $18.50. GLTA
AcuityAds Holdings Inc.
(AT-T) C$8.08
Momentum Delayed into 2022
Event
Q3/21 results and the call just ended.
Impact: NEGATIVE
As per the table and bullets below, revenue and EBITDA missed TD and consensus expectations in Q3/21. Even if we exclude FX impacts, revenue growth of 11.3% Y/Y (versus 5.4% reported growth in CAD) was below our 18.4% estimate. Management cited two key factors:
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Supply chain disruptions causing some advertisers to hold back on conversion spending, and this headwind is expected to continue in Q4/21 (notably, management does not believe that new Apple privacy policies had much impact because Acuity does not handle much in-app advertising).
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The sales and trialing cycle for illumin has been longer-than-expected with customers in the enterprise segment. Many enterprise customers (where annual spending on the illumin platform could be over $10 million per account) are expected to move from the trial stage to the full integration stage in 2022, but Acuity management no longer expects as much of a surge in reported revenue in Q4/21 as they had previously hoped for (but positive Y/Y growth is still expected).
Management also stated that investments to drive revenue growth (including sales, marketing and product development) will increase in future quarters, so that the company could give back some of the recent gains that have been achieved in EBITDA margins.
The prospect of share buybacks to support the share price was also downplayed, with management saying that they would prefer to hold on to the $100+ million in cash for future acquisitions.
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Revenue of $27.5 million versus TD/consensus $30.9mm/$31.5mm. illumin revenue was $7.2 million (+42% Q/Q) in the quarter and cumulative revenue generated by illumin was $17.3 million.
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Net revenue of $14.3 million versus TD/consensus $15.4mm/$15.9mm.
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Adjusted EBITDA of $4.4 million versus TD/consensus $5.1mm/$4.7mm.
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EPS of $0.06 versus TD/consensus $0.04/$0.03.