Despite big growth in customer, merchant and transaction numbers over the past year, Afterpay will report weaker underlying earnings for the 2019/20 year.
The company, which launched a capital raising at more than A$60 a share yesterday, is expecting investors will look beyond short-term earnings weakness and focus on what it argues is a strong long-term growth opportunity.
The company said in an investor briefing yesterday that it will report EBITDA, excluding significant items (its preferred measure of earnings performance), of $20 to $25 million for the year to June.
This is down from $28.7 million in 2018/19 and $35.2 million in 2017/18
Afterpay reported $11.1 billion of underlying sales in the year to June – up from $5.2 billion in 2018/19. Its plan to is hit $20 billion of underlying sales by 2021/22.
The company expects to report a net transaction margin of 2 per cent for the year, which is the target the company set last year.
It did not explain why the strong sales growth did not translate into better earnings, but the company is going through an ambitious growth phase.
It claims active customer numbers of 9.9 million worldwide, compared with 4.6 million a year ago. Of those, 5.6 million are in the United States and one million in the United Kingdom.
More than 90 per cent of underlying sales came from repeat purchases in the June quarter, which the company uses as an indicator of customer engagement.
And it has 55,400 active merchants, compared with 32,300 per cent a year ago.
The company said it was raising capital to invest in business growth, “prioritising global expansion”.
It plans to launch in Canada in the current financial year and “has the potential” to move into other new markets.
The company has launched a fully underwritten institutional placement aimed at raising $650 million. The underwritten floor price is $61.75 a share, representing a 9.2 per cent discount to the July 6 closing price.
The placement will be followed by a non-underwritten share purchase plan to raise an additional $150 million.
Most analysts value the stock at around $35 to $40 a share. Macquarie Securities’ most recent report on the company, in April, gave it a discounted cash flow valuation of $40.14.
At the same time, Afterpay co-founders Anthony Eisen and Nicholas Molnar have agreed to sell 2.05 million shares each – 10 per cent of their respective holdings. The sell-down is also underwritten.
They will remain the company’s biggest shareholders, with around 18.4 million shares each.