Loihde - Earnings poised to soar towards year-end
Q1 profitability came in soft. While growth is expected going forward, the extent of profitability remains uncertain due to challenges affecting margins. We downgraded our 23E EBIT, but expect earnings growth remaining robust for 2023-25.
Mixed quarter; solid topline but soft EBITDA
Loihde faced temporal challenges impacting its Q1 performance. SeSo grew by a solid 22%, but DiDe struggled due to tough market conditions, leading to a decline in net sales. Despite this, Q1 group net sales showed a y/y growth of 13%, amounting to EUR 31.3m. Loihde's key strategic pillars, One Security and continuing services, continued on a strong growth trajectory. However, internal integration challenges resulted in negative margins, raising concerns about future integration processes. The company expects challenges to ease towards the end of the year which should positively drive Loihde’s profitability.
Getting better towards the end of the year
ERP project challenges have persisted into Q2, but we anticipate a lesser impact moving forward. Utilization rates are expected to recover and improve in H2, that should provide some year-end scale. While we have reduced growth estimates for both businesses due to a more pessimistic view of Q2 and H2, we believe that DiDe's demand will improve and SeSo's temporal challenges affecting margins will fade away in H2. We view the demand for SeSo's offering continuing solid with acquisitions supporting the overall growth. Despite a significant downgrade in Loihde's 23E adj. EBITDA estimate by combining a very soft Q1 and reduced estimates, the downgrade for the 2024 adj. EBITDA estimate was relatively small, but still notable at approx. 10%.
HOLD with a target price of EUR 15.0 (16.5)
With our revised estimates, Loihde’s current valuation turns out to be quite elevated. The company trades with 23-24E EV/EBITDA and P/E multiples of 4.8-4.6x and 37-17x respectively. Considering elevated valuation, but also highlighting robust estimated earnings growth during 2023-25, we retain our HOLD rating. With significant decline in 23-24E EBIT estimates, our TP is now EUR 15.0 (16.5).
Loihde faced temporal challenges impacting its Q1 performance. SeSo grew by a solid 22%, but DiDe struggled due to tough market conditions, leading to a decline in net sales. Despite this, Q1 group net sales showed a y/y growth of 13%, amounting to EUR 31.3m. Loihde's key strategic pillars, One Security and continuing services, continued on a strong growth trajectory. However, internal integration challenges resulted in negative margins, raising concerns about future integration processes. The company expects challenges to ease towards the end of the year which should positively drive Loihde’s profitability.
Getting better towards the end of the year
ERP project challenges have persisted into Q2, but we anticipate a lesser impact moving forward. Utilization rates are expected to recover and improve in H2, that should provide some year-end scale. While we have reduced growth estimates for both businesses due to a more pessimistic view of Q2 and H2, we believe that DiDe's demand will improve and SeSo's temporal challenges affecting margins will fade away in H2. We view the demand for SeSo's offering continuing solid with acquisitions supporting the overall growth. Despite a significant downgrade in Loihde's 23E adj. EBITDA estimate by combining a very soft Q1 and reduced estimates, the downgrade for the 2024 adj. EBITDA estimate was relatively small, but still notable at approx. 10%.
HOLD with a target price of EUR 15.0 (16.5)
With our revised estimates, Loihde’s current valuation turns out to be quite elevated. The company trades with 23-24E EV/EBITDA and P/E multiples of 4.8-4.6x and 37-17x respectively. Considering elevated valuation, but also highlighting robust estimated earnings growth during 2023-25, we retain our HOLD rating. With significant decline in 23-24E EBIT estimates, our TP is now EUR 15.0 (16.5).