RE: How to value Tern / Device Authority ?29 Jul 2021 08:50
Woof, nice to see a sensible post. The possible valuation of DA is what excites everyone. But what it might be valued at now, on Tern's books, doesn't reflect what it's likely to sell for. Because the latter price would include goodwill, and most importantly, future potential. Assuming the tech is uniquely good, as statements from the likes of MS and Entrust imply, then what could such projections comprise? It's SAAS, which makes things doubly hard. You mention a need for contracts, but SAS sales are probably not contract based, and income from such sales grow exponentially and over time. When DA releases its results shortly, I'll bet many people will be disappointed because from an SAAS revenues point of view, it's early days.
The lack of insight as to the revenue split between contracts and SAAS sales is part of this irritating lack of transparency. It's even conceivable that there are no contracts to announce because all sales are SAAS, although I doubt it as I suspect KS is being white labelled.
I believe that those SAAS revenues will become very substantial indeed. And when DA is sold, the valuation will reflect this potential. The debate then is about DA's current valuation on Tern's books. Surely there's a logical disconnect if it's valued either on NAV or current earnings if everyone knows it'll be sold for far more than either of these.