Yesterday’s Interim Results from the itim Group (LON:ITIM) were better than expected.
The group, which is a SaaS based technology company that enables store-based retailers to optimise their businesses to improve their efficiency, effectiveness and financial performance, reported revenues up 19% in the first half year to end-June.
In reaction the group’s shares put on a useful 18% advance in price, to 41.50p, valuing it at only £12.95m.
The Business
Established in 1993 by its founder, and current Chief Executive Officer, Ali Athar, was initially formed as a consulting business, helping retailers to effect operational improvement.
From 1999 the company began to expand into the provision of proprietary software solutions and by 2004 it was focused exclusively on digital technology.
Over the years it has grown both organically and through a series of acquisitions of small, legacy retail software systems and associated applications, which the group has redeveloped to create a fully integrated end-to-end ‘omnichannel’ platform.
That platform enables retailers to adopt an engaging customer-centric approach to shopping in-store, online and on mobile.
Its retail software solutions support multi-channel sales and service, enterprise order management, price and stock optimisation, and supplier management.
Today the company works with over 80 retailers across 11 countries, a small range of its clients includes: Whitbread, Majestic Wine, Argos, The Entertainer, John Lewis, Sainsbury’s, The Fragrance Shop, Costa Coffee, JC Penney, Walmart, McDonalds, Quiz, Co-Op, Waitrose, WH Smith, and Travis Perkins.
It provides ‘omnichannel’ retailers with a ‘Unified Retail’ platform designed around the customer, that leads to increased sales and profitability.
The Equity
There are some 31.2m shares in issue.
Larger holders include the Athar family (38.40%), Lewis family (18.07%), Robert Frosell, Dir (7.64%), Herald Investment Management (6.37%), Curtis family (4.12%), Ian Hayes, Dir (2.72%), Michael Jackson, Dir (1.76%), Sandra da Costa Ribeiro, Dir (0.87%) and Justin King (0.74%).
Analyst Views
John Cummins and Charlie Cullen yesterday upped their estimates for the current year to end-December to look for revenues of £17.1m (£16.1m), and an adjusted pre-tax loss of £0.7m (£1.1m loss).
The analysts were previously expecting a £1.0m loss this year, so the small improvement is noteworthy.
They were also anticipating that the company would end this year with £0.5m cash in the bank, but now they have adjusted their figures to seek a useful £2.1m cash at year-end.
For 2025 they foresee £18.0m sales, and a turn around into £0.4m profits, worth 1.9p per share in earnings per share.
They note that with an encouraging pipeline of business leading into next year, they view the company as very well placed to continue to deliver into FY2025 and see substantial room for upside as new contracts are secured.
The analysts have previously stated that they consider that this group’s shares were trading on an undemanding rating compared to their ‘fair value’ of 55p a share.
In My View
Capitalised at only £12.95m, even with its shares 18% better yesterday at 41.50p, it will have £2.1m cash in the bank at the year-end.
I can see the broker’s analyst price estimates as being easily achieved in due course.