Montega kirjoittelee Sevicewaren uusimmasta kaupasta ja arvelee että vuosiliikevaihto “high 6 digit” sekä käyttökate 0,5-0,8 meur/vuosi.
Vahvistaa tavoitteeksi 19,0 eur & Buy
Käy lävitse myös OTRS-kauppaa, jonkinlainen viimeinen julkinen verrokki Saksassa.
Mennyt 3-4 x kurssi
Arvostuksella 1,9 x myynti ja 2,1 x ARR, sekä arvioivat n 23,3 x EV/EBITDA (jos EBITDA margin medium term nousisi 10%)
Serviceware 9kk SaaS -liikevaihto oli 51 meur ja tasaista tahtia → 68 MEUR
2,1 -kertoimella arvostus 143 MEUR kun markkina-arvo nyt 135 MEUR (10,5 mkpl osaketta a 12,85 eur).
Montega arvioi Servicewaren kasvavan paremmin (2/10/12%) vs OTRS (2/4/-1%) vuosina 2022/23/24, sekä saavan mittakaavaetuja esim R&D verrattuna OTRS.
Translaattori kertoo:
Classification of Montega AG to Serviceware SE
Company: Serviceware SE
ISIN: DE000A2G8X31
Reason for the study: Update
Recommendation: Buy
since: 27.01.2025
Target price: 19.00 EUR
Target price over a period of: 12 months
Last rating change: -
Analyst: Christoph Hoffmann
Q4 Preview: Solid annual results expected - Competitor completes takeover of listed peer OTRS
Serviceware recently announced the acquisition of a new customer for the ITFM and the complementary Business Intelligence & Analytics module (BI&A), thus continuing the strong momentum from the last financial year. The company is likely to have ended 2024 with a solid Q4 and, in addition to double-digit sales growth, will also show the significant EBITDA growth we expected. Meanwhile, the wave of takeovers among ITFM/ITSM providers is also continuing. For example, ITSM competitor EasyVista, majority-held by PE investor Eurazeo, recently completed the takeover of the German listed software company OTRS. The takeover offer was 3-4x higher than the share price and, in our opinion, underlines the existing undervaluation of the sector. Even taking into account the margin and growth potential of OTRS, which we also covered at the time, the transaction illustrates the high willingness to pay of strategists and private equity in the ITFM, ITSM and ESM markets.
Another Fortune 500 Europe company won: Even though no financial details have been published, we assume that the annual SaaS fee for the new SJJ customer is in the high six-figure range. The gross margin is likely to be between 70% and 80%, which could contribute an annual EBITDA of around EUR 0.5-0.7 million. Serviceware is pricing both the ITFM and BI&A modules depending on the customer’s managed IT budget, benefiting from the size of the new client (engineering company with several billion in sales and tens of thousands of employees). The Serviceware modules will be the company’s first professional ITFM solution, which underlines that the market (even for large caps) is still not saturated.
After USU Software, the last German peer OTRS is being taken over at what we believe to be ambitious multiples: After USU was taken over by private equity investor Thoma Bravo in October 2024, shortly after the delisting offer in April 2024, consolidation in the industry continues with the takeover of the listed peer and ITSM provider OTRS. The transaction implies an equity value of EUR 32.6 million and, in our opinion, an EV of just under EUR 28 million. Based on the 2024 FY guidance and our calculations for OTRS’s non-consolidated sales subsidiaries, this corresponds to approximately 1.9 times sales or 2.1 times ARR, as OTRS only generated low service sales. While this does not initially seem ambitious for a SaaS provider, the growth, technology and margin profile or potential should also be considered. In recent years, SJJ has shown higher growth rates than OTRS (OTRS 2022: 2%; 2023: 4.0%; 2024e: -1% according to guidance vs. SJJ: 2022: 2.3%; 2023: 10.0%; 2024e: 12.0%), although we had recently expected a short-term return to the growth path with mid-single-digit growth rates for OTRS (see Comment dated December 4, 2024). Due to the size of Serviceware, there are also economies of scale at the R&D level. To be able to develop AI functions, OTRS increased R&D spending from EUR 0.5 to 5.0 million between 2013 and 2023, so that the R&D ratio increased from 10% to 40% (MONe: R&D budget SJJ: EUR 10-15 million).
As a result of OTRS’s growth investments, profitability is currently declining, meaning that the company has been generating a slightly negative EBITDA since 2023. The differences in size are also reflected in the number of employees, as Serviceware employed 131 R&D employees in 2023, while OTRS employed 84 people company-wide.
Assuming that OTRS can significantly improve profitability in the medium term and achieve an EBITDA margin of 10% (2023: -2.7%), current sales would result in an EBITDA of EUR 1.2 million and accordingly an EV/EBITDA multiple of 23.3x.
Solid Q4 expected: After SJJ has already generated sales of EUR 76.2 million of the EUR 100.7 to 105.2 million forecast in the first nine months, the company only needs to generate EUR 24.5 million in Q4 to reach the lower end of the more precise guidance (+10% to +15% yoy; previously +5% to +15% yoy). This corresponds to growth of only ~2.8% yoy in Q4/24, while an increase of 12.5% yoy was achieved in 9M/24. Accordingly, we reaffirm our sales forecast of EUR 102.5 million (+12.0% yoy) and continue to expect the FY guidance to be achieved. At the EBITDA level, we expect an EBITDA of EUR 1.0 million in Q4, so that SJJ will close with a FY EBITDA of EUR 3.8 million (previous year: EUR 0.2 million).
(Tabel)
In 2025, we expect the positive operational development to continue. Specifically, we forecast a sales increase of 9.8% yoy to EUR 112.6 million and a significant increase in EBITDA to EUR 7.6 million, which should be achieved through the expected revenue growth combined with the scaling of the almost constant cost base.
Conclusion: After the takeover of USU Software and OTRS, Serviceware is the only remaining listed ESM company in Germany. While the recent new customer acquisition underlines SJJ’s continued positive operating momentum in a difficult global environment, the high purchase price for OTRS, in our opinion, once again underlines the attractiveness of the sector. We reiterate our buy recommendation and our price target of EUR 19.00.
